Promise
by TheShoelessOne
Summary: POV Ziggy. The fic lives! Albedo, the madman, finally shows his face. The battle for the cosmos is about to begin. Mild Ziggy speculation. Chapter 24 up!
1. While She Slept

Promise  
  
The screaming.  
  
It was just the same, just as it had been before. The sound of the screaming still stung in my ears after all this time. I would never forget those screams. How could I forget? The screams, the running, and then... the shot. I had been powerless to stop it then, and I was just as powerless to stop it now. That horrid event played exactly the same in my mind, only now I knew the outcome. I knew what would transpire before it occurred. But why... why did it have to happen? Had it been my fault? I squeezed my eyes shut tightly just as the shot pealed loudly in the fading light. That one shot was all it had taken. That single, deadly shot. The one, fateful shot that ended my life.  
  
My eyes shot open in shock. I felt a cold sweat plastered on my face, and I breathed heavily as I sat up, my eyes adjusting to my surroundings. The Durandal. I was in my stateroom on the Durandal. How long had I been asleep? I pressed my flesh hand against the lids of my now closed eyes, as if attempting to wipe away the images that still clung to them. The same. My dream had been the same every night since we had been rescued from the insides of the Gnosis called Cathedral Ship. My subconscious told me quietly that, not only would this dream be repeated inside my head, but also it would repeat itself in reality.  
  
As if ridding myself of the notion, I stood suddenly from the bed, the sheets falling astray. Anger flared up from deep within me, and I clenched my fists together, gritting my teeth with a feeling almost like hate.  
  
Never.  
  
I would never let such a thing happen to her. My anger fell from my face with a suddenness that almost frightened me. My thoughts switched to MOMO without any provocation, and I felt the tension slip almost as easily from my mind as had the anger only moments ago. I checked the clock sitting silently on the wall. It was early still. Even though the Durandal was an active ship, surely no one would be about in the Residential Area at this time. With almost no effort, I made my way to the door of my cabin. I would go check on her... Just to make sure she was all right... That was all. I pressed my hand against my door, feeling its cold realness beneath my skin, and then evoked it to slide open. As I had suspected, there was no one wandering the halls. Though it was an active ship, security was relatively lax. I searched my memory for the door that belonged to her, and when I had located it, I provoked the door into opening. No sound but steady breathing came from the dark innards of the room.  
  
She lay there on her bed, quiet and still, her closed golden eyes facing the ceiling. I felt suddenly ill-at-ease, as if I had broken some regulation upon entering her room. After a moment of standing in her doorway, I ignored the feeling and moved inside, hearing her door shut quietly. I moved as silently as was possible with my cyborg body. As I approached her bed as noiselessly as I could muster, my eyes searched for any indication that she was in distress. I found none. But... I could not help but look at her.  
  
She reminded me so much of him. Her bright, golden eyes almost the same hue as his had been. Their voices both chimed like bells. He had once been like her, so young and alive, infinite possibilities spread out before him. A sharp report of pain passed through my chest, and my face contorted into pain. It was painful to think of that day, to think of my stepson. But looking at MOMO almost made me forget my pain. Her pale pink hair fell over her face with a slight rustle. Like instinct, my human hand began to move to her face, but I hesitated, remembering what happened when someone became too close... I remembered that I had told myself that I would never again become attached to someone. I hesitated for silent moment upon silent moment, then, tentatively, my hand moved to the tuft of hair that had fallen across her face, and I replaced it behind her ear. She stirred slightly, and I recoiled, wishing of anything but to wake her. Her mouth parted, and she seemed to form a soundless word. Perplexed, I leaned in closer as she formed the word again, this time with an escaping breath.  
  
"Ziggy..."  
  
I was taken aback at the sudden mention of my name... or, at least, the name she had given me. I involuntarily began to answer her.  
  
"I'm here," I told her in a quiet whisper, "And I won't leave you... Not like I left him." I chided myself for lying. I never really left him... Only my hope did. I may have been mistaken, but it looked as if MOMO's face, bright like his had been, pulled into the semblance of a smile. I moved to the door once more, only glancing over my shoulder once more to see her sleeping soundly. Part of me wanted to stay with her. What if were to happen without warning, just like that day? I shook my head, scolding myself once more. I opened the door and forced myself to go through. I made a promise to the sweet, innocent Realian that slept so peacefully in the room now to my back.  
  
I promised to her that I would never let anything happen to make her lose that smile, lose that spark that shone from within her that made her who she was. I would never allow a repeat of that day. I was careless and sloppy then, but now...  
  
"Hey, old man!" Jr.'s voice caught my attention as it echoed off the metal walls of the empty hall. I looked up to see him sauntering down the hall toward me. I indicated that I was listening to him with a nod of my head, "What're you doin' outside MOMO's room?"  
  
"Keeping a sharp eye," I said, coming up with an excuse quickly. "The Durandal seems to be undermanned in the way of security. Also, our luck hasn't been the greatest of late." Jr. laughed, then looked at MOMO's door.  
  
"Well then, Bodyguard, can I go ask MOMO if she wants to come to the beach with me?"  
  
"She's sleeping," I said, trying to keep my tone down. Jr. looked at me incredulously.  
  
"At this hour?" he harrumphed. "That's no fun. I'll have to go ask Shion, then. You tell her what I said, okay, Bodyguard?" I made a noise that could have been interpreted as agreeing as Jr. jogged back down the hall.  
  
Was that jealousy I felt just then?  
  
Pushing the thought from my mind, I crossed my arms an leaned against the wall next to MOMO's door, closing my eyes. I would wait. I would always be waiting.  
  
I had a promise to keep.  
  
End. 


	2. Time to Forget the Past

I waited for a long time, leaning against the wall with my eyes closed next to MOMO's door. Occasionally, I would hear her stir in her bed, and all my senses would tune themselves to the surroundings. But nothing was ever wrong. She was merely sleeping. That was all I did for the longest time... Listen and wait. I wound down after a while, not jumping at every little sound. I wished bitterly that I could sleep so peacefully, but it was a fool's wish. My memories would never let me sleep that well as long as they remained in my mind. My arms, folded across my chest, tightened their grip as I thought about what I had asked Juli Mizrahi and the other members of the Contact Sub-Committee to do with my memories from my past life. I lifted my cyborg arm to my face and looked at it, and I turned and moved all the joints in the metal hand, making it buzz and whirr with mechanics and the turning of gears. I formed that hand into a fist, the metal of my hand scraping together.  
  
Yes. I wanted to forget. I wanted to forget the pain. I wanted to forget the suffering and the hurt. I wanted to erase the feelings of anguish my mind and my heart clung to without reason. I no longer needed to wake with a pain in my heart, remembering the fear and the sadness. I was doing the right thing, forgetting the past. The past was nothing but haunting and agonizing. My thoughts belonged in the present. They belonged with MOMO. I crossed my arms once more, waiting.  
  
As the time passed, the people of the Durandal began to awaken. The first to rise were the guards. I didn't look up as they passed. I felt that they may had deserved a greeting had they been out doing their duty earlier. Soon after the guards came the residents of the ship itself. I saw many unfamiliar faces walk by me, though I recognized Shelley Godwin from the crowd that stood around her. Our eyes met as she walked past, and I nodded in recognition. She returned the nod, then continued walking. I caught glimpses of Realians and humans alike. I noticed Mary's laughter before I saw her face. She called out to me, and I gave her the same head nod I had given her sister. She giggled and told her friends that I reminded her of her sister. I tried to tune my ears to anything that was happening in MOMO's room, but was interrupted when Allen, walking the opposite direction that everyone else seemed to be moving in, came up to me, out of breath.  
  
"Ziggy," he said breathlessly, "Have... you seen... the-"  
  
"Jr. went to ask her to the beach," I responded, already knowing what he was going to ask, "You may want to look for her there." The Vector employee smiled weakly, then started making his way to the dock. As I watched him struggle to make his way through the hallway, I heard a sound at my side. I turned nonchalantly, only to find that the sound I had heard was the sound of MOMO's door opening. I saw the little pink-haired Realian walk out of her room, sleep still in her eyes. I almost jumped with surprise, but restrained myself quickly. She looked up, rubbing her right eye gently, and a smile spread over her face as her eyes fell upon me.  
  
"Good morning, Ziggy!" she told me, taking her hand away from her face, showing her sparkling golden eyes. I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry, then looked at my feet, remembering everything that had transpired earlier, and how the look she gave me reminded me...  
  
"'Morning, Dad!" I heard his voice call from the depths of my memory. I winced at the pain it recalled when I could no longer hear his voice. I felt MOMO's face and demeanor fall as she stood next to me. Still looking at my feet, I tried to sound happier than I actually felt.  
  
"Good morning, MOMO," I said quietly. I looked up, meeting her eyes again. They were sad now. Her eyebrows began to creep upwards in steadily increasing sadness. This made me feel worse than I had had ever felt from the time I rescued MOMO from her cell on Pleroma. I uncrossed my arms, feeling guilt spread through my person. "I'm sorry," I told her honestly. "I'm just not feeling my best since last night. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I AM happy to see you." MOMO's face almost immediately brightened. I felt relief this time.  
  
"That's good. I'm just glad you're not mad at me," her voice told of her happiness. She then looked at me, almost curiously, "Are feeling okay?" Not wanting to worry her any further, I lied.  
  
"Yes, I'm fine now." After a brief silence, I remembered that Jr. had wanted me to relay a message. For some reason that was beyond comprehension, I was reluctant to tell her what he had asked me to say. But I did, despite my feelings against it, "MOMO," she looked up with a smile, "Jr. came by while you were asleep. He asked me to tell you that he wished for you to join him down at the beach." MOMO giggled, and nodded her head.  
  
"That would be so much fun!" she told me, heading back into her room. I stayed outside the room, waiting for her to change. I heard her voice call back to me through the metal door. "Are you coming with me, Ziggy?" she asked lightly. I was silent. There was no possible way that I could participate in the activities she would at the beach with my cyborg body. When I didn't respond, I heard her again, "Ziggy?"  
  
"No," I told her after hesitating only a moment more. She was quiet again. After a few more moments, she came out of her room in a pink bathing suit, ready to join Jr. and the others at the beach. Her face was etched with sadness again.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
I couldn't lie to her. She was too innocent for me to lie to her like that. I set my human hand on her head to console her.  
  
"I'm afraid that I would just get in the way of your fun. I'm..." I looked away again, "I'm not exactly the first name that comes to mind when you think of fun, am I?" I asked truthfully. MOMO shook her head, grabbing my arm.  
  
"Sure you are! Please, Ziggy, just come to the beach with me! I promise we'll have fun!"  
  
I couldn't say no to her face. She smiled at me incessantly, her wide, generous eyes staring at mine until I would give her an answer. I remembered, then, that I had made a promise. That made up my mind. I nodded, and she laughed, and began skipping down the hall in front of me.  
  
"We'll have so much fun! Come on, Ziggy!" she said, looking back over her shoulder. I started walking, my metal body clanking and buzzing. It was amazing how she could make me do anything she wanted just by her eyes. He'd had that ability too. I could never say no. They were so alike...  
  
No, I told myself. It was time to forget the past. The past was pain. There was no longer room in my life for that pain. It was time to forget. I looked up at MOMO's happy face, then I caught up with her, taking her hand in mine.  
  
"Alright, MOMO... Let's go."  
  
Her bright smile assured me that this was no mistake. The past didn't matter anymore. She was all that mattered.  
  
And I would make sure that nothing ever happened to hurt her. 


	3. Sunshine and Sandcastles

"Just where do you think you're going?"  
  
I stared the man down, still gripping MOMO's hand in my own. She held an overlarge beach ball with her other arm. She looked up at the man barring our path. He seemed unaffected by both of our stares. MOMO shifted on her feet. I slid my front foot forward a bit, inching closer to our obstruction. I could see Gaignun's private beach only yards ahead of us, and I glared threateningly at the man.   
  
"We have an invitation from Gaignun Jr., and we are to meet him on that beach," I said through my teeth. MOMO seemed surprised, and so did the man, "If MOMO and I are not on that beach within five minutes, it won't be only Jr. who will be irate, if you follow me. If you don't believe me, go ask him yourself. He'll only confirm what I've told you. Now, let us through." The man was frightened visibly, and the sight made me smirk. He moved aside, mumbling some sort of thrown-together apology. I motioned to MOMO to come, and she did so, smiling. After we were out of hearing range, MOMO moved up onto her tiptoes, and I leaned down to hear her.  
  
"You were great!" She said, in a tone that made me think she had been giggling the whole time. "But did you really have to scare him like that?" I squeezed her hand lightly, emphasizing the point I was about to make.  
  
"Jr. did want you to come to the beach with him, and he would have come to the gate if the guard had asked him to. I told only the truth. And besides," I said, looking out at the fast approaching glittering water, "you DO want to go to the beach, don't you?" The Realian laughed, and nodded.  
  
"Yes!" she said, also looking out to the beach. As we rounded the building in front of the beach, we could make out the forms of Jr., Shion, Allen and chaos. MOMO looked up at me, her eyes glittering in admiration, then she looked to Jr., then back to me again. I looked at the boy, feeling that same feeling that was almost like jealousy, then nodded. She giggled lightly and released my hand, running off in the direction of Jr. and chaos. I slowed to a stop, watching as she ran from me, off to join the others. Jealousy. That was what I felt. It wasn't just akin to jealousy... It was... I took another step forward, only to stop again. I didn't belong here, I thought. This was a place for swimming, and laughing, and playing, none of which I was very capable of doing. I stood still, contemplating whether to go back to the Durandal, leaving MOMO in the others' hands, or staying, and basically hiding myself away. My mind was made up for me when Allen looked up from his fishing pole and saw me standing aloof. I heard his voice from far off, carrying an echo.  
  
"Ziggy, hey! What're you waiting for?" he called. MOMO looked up from where she was playing ball with Jr. and chaos. She smiled. I could see her smile from far off, even when I could hardly distinguish any one person from another at that distance. It was almost as if I could feel her smile instead of seeing it.  
  
"C'mon, Ziggy! You'll miss all the fun!" her voice carried just as Allen's had. I took another step forward, and after that, my feet seemed to carry me to where the others stood, rather than making me move myself. I stood there without purpose, feeling slightly embarrassed. MOMO took my hand and started leading me to where Allen sat on the wooden dock, clad in his ridiculous green bathing suit. A fishing pole in hand, he sat, staring intently, at the point where the water and his bobber connected. MOMO snickered, and tapped him on the back. He jumped, making the bobber disturb the water. MOMO laughed, and hugged him, and assured him that she was just joking. Allen, grumbling, went back to staring at the water. MOMO, on the other hand, tugged on my arm and leaned against my side. Her golden eyes looked out to the artificial sunset. I looked to where her eyes traveled too. Her grip on my arm tightened.  
  
"It's beautiful, isn't it, Ziggy?" she asked quietly. Despite the sunset being artificial, I had to agree that it was, in fact, quite beautiful. I sighed. The last time I had seen a sunset as wonderful as this... The last time I had been standing next to someone I cared about... I looked down at MOMO, and her eyes still gazed out past the water. With a suddenness that startled me, she hopped to attention, looking at me now, and started running down the dock, pulling me in tow. I couldn't stop her. She was running straight for the water, and pulling me with her. Fright shot through my body. What if I landed on her? What if I electrocuted her? What if my legs rusted? What if-  
  
I didn't get to finish. She jumped off the wooden dock, and I went after, all the possible consequences flying through my head as I went flying through the air. I could hear Jr. and chaos shouting words of encouragement and excitement. Shion was yelling in horror. Just before we hit the water, I closed my eyes and pushed MOMO to the side in attempts to not accidentally fall on her as she went underwater. I heard her hit first with a loud splash, and then I was engulfed in water, feeling coldness surround me. My eyes shot open with the shock of the cold water. I could clearly see MOMO in the bright blue water. She was swimming toward the surface. I realized then that this was something I could not do. My feet took me to the bottom, sand billowing up around me. My breath was going. I walked as swiftly as I could along the bottom. I could see the surface. I didn't think my lungs could take too much more pressure. Just as I felt as if they were going to explode, my head broke the surface. I gulped new air into my lungs. After the initial breaths, I began walking to shore. When the water came only to my ankles, I stopped.  
  
I stood there for minutes on end. I looked behind me to see MOMO swimming in my direction. A look of deep concern was plastered on her face. Shion, chaos and Allen also were running up to me. MOMO made it to my side first, and she hugged herself close to my wet body.  
  
"Oh, Ziggy, I'm so sorry!" she said. "I forgot... You couldn't swim..." I could feel my wet hair plastered to my face as I knelt down to her size and returned her embrace.  
  
"It wasn't your fault," I tried to tell her. It was then that Shion decided to march up, arms akimbo. I tried not to look directly at her, seeing as her bathing suit was quite revealing. She stared me down, eyes ablaze.  
  
"What were you thinking?!" she cried. I cringed. I saw now why Allen was afraid of her. "You could have hurt MOMO! Did anything like that run through your mind? What if you crushed her?! What if you-" She stopped, looking at my face. I held an expression akin to hurt. She stared.  
  
"That's all I thought about," I told her quietly. MOMO looked up, her golden eyes now glistening wet. "The only thought of me was the thoughts of how many ways there were I could possibly injure her in my fall. I wanted to make sure she was unhurt. That's all I thought of." MOMO, by my side, nodded.  
  
"He tried to push me out of the way as he fell," her tone was awed. Shion, her face still set and angry, turned away, discomfited. She looked as if she was going to say something more, but she walked back to where she had been sitting. My posture slumped again, and, now noticing my hair was hanging around my face, scooped some water up in my hands and slicked it back once more. Jr. and chaos remained, asking if both of us were all right. I nodded, and MOMO gave them her best reassuring smile. When they both had gone, I turned to MOMO, her face red and humiliated. I leaned down and, with one deft blow, splashed a handful of water at her. She seemed mortified at first, but she then laughed. It was an understanding, then. It was no one's fault. We both walked out of the shallows and to the beach, where we both tried our best to dry ourselves off. MOMO sat in the sand near the water's edge, and asked for me to join her. Jr. glanced over his shoulder, and both he and chaos joined us as well. The Realian had with her two buckets and four shovels.  
  
"Who wants to have a sandcastle building contest?" she asked. Jr. and chaos both agreed, and I slowly nodded my head. MOMO picked me to be on her team, which seemed to unnerve Jr., but both he and chaos began work on their castle. MOMO filled our bucket with wet sand and swiftly overturned it, making a singular, bucket-shaped mound. I took my arm blade and smoothed the sides so that the shape became a rectangle. We added four smaller rectangles around the main one, each topped with a stick for a flagpole. I looked over my shoulder to take a glance at Jr. and chaos' work, and was amused to find that chaos had accidentally caused a mound to topple over, and Jr. had been harping on the subject for five minutes.   
  
"You said you just brushed it! How can a whole castle fall down just by brushing it! You're lying to me!"  
  
"Settle down, Jr.," chaos begged. Our structure became more and more elaborate, until, after a good twenty minutes, the castle itself contained four levels, each with two tiers, and a surrounding wall that contained a dry moat. Shion was about to call "time up," just as Allen came staggering by, holding a fish of monstrous proportions. We tried to warn him, but it was too late.  
  
"Guys! Chief! Look at this fish I-" As he rambled, Allen's foot caught on the castle MOMO and I had worked on, and he fell forward, both his face and the fish falling flat on the sand. Our castle was now an indeterminate pile of sand underneath Allen's body. MOMO and I looked at each other, at once horrified. Then she laughed. It rang clear as a bell, and it echoed through the air. At such a pure sound, I couldn't help but smile. It formed on my lips slowly, then parted in a gruff sound that may have been taken as a laugh. Shion and Jr. looked up at me, astonished. I had just laughed. The last time I had laughed...  
  
Jr. sighed and looked to the horizon. The lights on the opposite bank, those of the city, were shutting off one by one. I had noticed this as well. Shion threw her jacket on over her bathing suit, and Jr. offered his coat to MOMO. chaos sighed, wrapping his arms around himself.  
  
"I guess... it's time we head back, then?" he asked. Jr. nodded.  
  
"Yeah, I guess so." There was a mutual feeling then, like we had all experienced something that day that we didn't want to leave behind at Gaignun's private beach. The Vector employees and chaos walked off first, leaving Jr, MOMO and me. Jr., his thermal signature heating up, turned to MOMO.  
  
"Hey, uh... Thanks for coming down to the beach today," he told her. She nodded.  
  
"It was nothing. I had a great time. Thank you for inviting me."  
  
"Now that I think about it," Jr. said, now turning to me, a smile on his face, "I never remember inviting the bodyguard." Before MOMO could protest, Jr. shrugged and turned around, "I guess he felt he had to protect you even here. I'll see you two at breakfast, then." He left us standing there. MOMO looked to my eyes, but I avoided contact, feeling suddenly ill at ease in the fading light.  
  
"That's why you were outside my door?" she asked. I nodded slowly. She smiled. "I'm glad." She made as if to whisper something, so I leaned down, but instead I felt her lips touch my forehead. She laughed quietly and ran down the beach after Jr. I stood there a moment more. She had tricked me again, I thought, smiling. With that parting thought, we left the beach, not knowing that we would never be the same as we had been on that day we spent together. 


	4. Unwelcome Surprises and Setbacks

I was the last to step on the shuttle back to the Durandal that day, the citizens of the Kukai Foundation staring at me as if I wasn't able to feel their gaze upon my back. I acted the same as I always had, disregarding their stares, and searched the shuttle for MOMO and the others. The first thing that caught my attention was MOMO's vibrant pink hair. She was standing with Jr., giggling. He had both of his index fingers pointed at her in a mime if the handguns he was so fond of. He acted as if he were shooting at some invisible enemy. I took a step forward just as the shuttle began its launch. At the sound of my audible footfall, MOMO turned, a smile glittering on her face like sunlight. She motioned for me to join her and the others. As I moved toward her, the citizens of the Foundation seemed to part around me, as if recoiling in fear. I could tell the feared me. I could sense it. But I let the feeling pass, and I nodded to Shion as I approached. She waved back politely.  
  
The shuttle ride was unusually quiet, save for the story that Jr. was relating to MOMO, accompanied by her bright laughter. By the way he paused in the middle of his sentences, I could tell that he was fabricating every word, but it seemed to make MOMO happy, so I let it slide. Though, I had to admit, the boy was a good liar. I glanced up at Allen and Shion, who seemed not to be talking to each other, for some reason I did not know, and I noticed how chaos seemed to be watching the two of them in silence. With a jolt, the shuttle came to a complete stop. I made sure that MOMO would not fall by taking her hand as she started to fall. Jr. made a gruff sound in the back of his throat and looked to his feet, but MOMO thanked me. We stepped off the shuttle together, receiving more gawking looks. An outdated cyborg and a 100-Series Realian. What a pair we must have made.  
  
The citizens moved around us as we waited for Jr., Shion, Allen and chaos to exit the shuttle. Although her jacket still dangled from her shoulders, I could tell that Shion's thermal pattern had decreased, and she seemed to have noticed this as well. She looked to Jr. and myself in turn.  
  
"I think I'm going to go get dressed before dinner. I'll see you all there, then." she said. As she turned toward the train to leave, I could see Allen blush visibly, moving after her.  
  
"Err... Me too... I mean! Not with the Chief! Of course not... I mean-" he moved away, still mumbling. chaos laughed, his hands on his hips, then turned to Jr.  
  
"I suppose... Dinner then?" he asked. Jr. nodded.  
  
"Yeah, in an hour or so. Don't be late!" As an afterthought, as chaos had already turned to go, "And tell Shion!" Jr. shrugged lightly, looked at MOMO over his shoulder as if he were going to say something to her. His face reddened, and instead, he waved to the both of us before he made is way to his own private room. MOMO watched him go intently. I noticed this, but didn't say anything. Shion, Allen and chaos' train had gone, and now another one had pulled in to take its place. I considered walking to the bridge, but MOMO tugged on my arm.  
  
"Come with me, Ziggy! I want to show you something!" she told me. I hesitated for a moment, then thought that it would be courteous to at least escort her to her room. I nodded, and we both entered the newly arrived train. I asked to be transported to the Residential Area, and we were off. The ride took only seconds, but in those seconds, I did nothing but watch MOMO. The way her golden eyes swam in her head, the way she seemed to always be in motion, her gleeful smile. She was so different from me, but we were alike, as well... She was-  
  
I was jarred from my thoughts when she moved to the door, seeing as the tram had stopped. I followed, slower than usual, thoughts still brewing in my mind. We traipsed through the halls until we arrived at MOMO's room. She dashed inside, then poked her head out, warning me not to come in just yet.  
  
"I still have to get dressed first," she told me. She ducked back inside the room, the door closing after her, and random shuffling was all I could hear. I leaned against the wall next to her door, just as I had done earlier that day. So much had happened recently... Today had been the only time I could stop and think. Think about MOMO. I closed my eyes, thinking once more in silence. After a few minutes, the shuffling inside the room stopped, and I heard MOMO's voice called out to me.  
  
"Okay, Ziggy, you can-"  
  
She was interrupted as something made the entire ship jolt viciously. Taken by complete surprise, I was thrown to the floor, my head colliding with the metal floor painfully. I heard MOMO cry out from inside her room. The lights onboard flickered briefly. A shock was sent through my body at the sound of MOMO's scream. Forgetting my pain, I ran to MOMO's door and attempted to open it. Damn! It was locked. I pounded on the door until my hand ached.  
  
"MOMO!" I cried, "MOMO! Are you hurt?" No answer. I yelled louder, banging on the door, "MOMO!!" Too scared to wait any longer, I grabbed the crack of the sliding door and, with all my strength, threw my weight into pulling it open. I could hear the grinding of metal on metal, and I felt the strain in my arms. I forced the door open just enough for me to fit through. Every possibility ran through my head as I shoved my way through the crack in the door, landing on a pile of sheets and blankets. I saw MOMO lying on the floor next to a wall... And her chest rose and fell with steady breaths.   
  
Thank God...  
  
I knelt next to her almost still form, touching her face.  
  
"MOMO," I whispered, daring to caress her cheek gently. She stirred at my touch. "MOMO, are you hurt?" I asked. Her golden eyes fluttered open slowly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I helped her to sit up, and she looked as if she were dizzy, as she held her head with one of her hands.  
  
"I don't think I'm hurt," she told me, looking up to me. Not entirely convinced, I checked her arms and legs for breaks and, thankfully, found nothing. But it was fear I saw swimming in those eyes. I stared at her frightened eyes for only a second, then footsteps in the hall grabbed my attention. I turned to the door just as Jr. shoved his way in, breathless.  
  
"Is MOMO all right?" he breathed. Both MOMO and I nodded, and she stood first. I was worried, because as she stood, she staggered a bit. But she managed to right herself. Jr. looked her over once to make sure she was telling the truth, then his eyes turned to me, a serious glint in his eyes. "We should get to the bridge." I whole-heartedly agreed.  
  
"We need to find out what happened to cause all this," I suggested, looking at the mess that had once been MOMO's room. Jr. nodded, and the three of us left the room, an unnatural haste in our step.  
  
As we walked onto the bridge, we walked into pandemonium. I could hear the 100-Series shouting out information, people running from place to place, Gaignun, Shion, and Allen standing as if helpless, in the middle of all the commotion. I looked behind me, seeing that MOMO and Jr. had seen me, and I made a miniscule motion with my head for them to follow me. MOMO grabbed my arm at the elbow as we walked forward. Jr. went to Gaignun's side. I approached Shion, but she failed to notice.  
  
"Shion," I muttered, just loud enough to be heard over the turmoil. She turned. "What's happening?" I asked. She looked into my eyes, then shook her head.  
  
"I'm not-"  
  
She was cut short as a man's voice was projected onto the bridge, and I looked up to see that the whole Foundation was surrounded by Federation ships. I felt MOMO's grip on my arm tighten.  
  
"In accordance with Federation law, we hereby place the Kukai Foundation under arrest for the suspicion of violating Article 798, Chapter 37: Collection and Concealment of Defense Information, and Article 2153, Chapter 105, Acts of Aggression against Federation Vessels, and hereby revoke all rights previous granted. Shut down your engines and relinquish your weapons..." the man's voice came. I glanced down to MOMO, her eyes wide, as if asking, "Can they do that?" I nodded gravely, signifying that they very well could. Jr. seemed puzzled by the same question.  
  
"'Acts of Aggression against Federation Vessels'?!" his voice carried over the bridge. Before I could say anything to him, the man's voice continued.  
  
"Furthermore, should the Miltian government allow the Kukai Foundation to dock the Durandal, we will issue a state of emergency notice under Article 2384, Chapter 115, Part 18..." Allen, his face pale, could barely form his words.  
  
"W-what in the world is going on?" My thoughts exactly. chaos, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, answered the question of both Allen and myself.  
  
"It looks like they think the Durandal conspired with the Miltian government in an attack on the Federation fleet," he said in his quiet tone. I felt Shion jump by my side.  
  
"Huh? What Federation fleet?" My eyes flicked to her face, which was now pale and frightened. She saw me staring at her concerned eyes, then turned her gaze to the ground. I looked back up to the surrounding Federation ships, not surprised at her reaction. Not many people would hold my gaze for too long. Mary's shrill voice punctuated the growing silence.  
  
"Hey!" she shouted, "Check out the network news on the sub-monitor! You're not going to believe this!" A screen flashed on overhead, and it appeared to show the Durandal firing its guns at a Federation ship. I couldn't believe it. I turned my eyes this time to Jr. He, too, was staring at the visual feed with a look of horror plastered on his white face. Gaignun, who seemed unscathed, looked to his side as chaos walked up to him, staring with fear. A new voice, this one a woman's, washed over all of us, bringing with it a new wave of dread.  
  
"On the morning of the 21st, it appears that the 177th Marine Division flagship Woglinde, of the Galaxy Federation's Tessodora division, came under attack by a heavily armed ship belonging to the Kukai Foundation," the voice came. My jaw fell. Woglinde? Wasn't that-  
  
"The Woglinde?!" Shion gasped, confirming my thoughts, "What?! I thought the Gnosis attack had been reported already...?!" Her voice was thin and full of alarm, hate and disbelief. She had told me about what had happened to Allen and herself on that ship. Now I KNEW something was wrong. I looked back to the video feed, which was playing over and over continually. It looked so convincing... But how? The woman's voice continued to speak.  
  
"The company has been identified as operating in conjunction with the Second Miltian government. And considerations for the possibility of treason have forced the Federation Parliament to dispatch a fleet..." Completely disregarding the voice overhead, I listened to what chaos had to interject, his voice thin.  
  
"They did a good job doctoring that video... But how did they synchronize the battle coordinates as well?" chaos looked to Jr., whose face was now flushed with anger and hate. I knew that look. It was the same that had been on my own face, on that day... I felt pain etch its way onto my face. MOMO's gaze turned to me, and I could barely hear her over the din of the crowd.  
  
"Ziggy," she sighed. It was not meant to catch my attention... It was more of a comforting whisper. I looked down to her, my eyebrows arched with the ache of past memories.... Even though I had promised myself I would try to forget. Looking into MOMO's concerned eyes was all I needed to make me forget. Her bright, golden eyes swam with fear and distress. I could feel a sad smile form at the corners of my mouth. I placed my cyborg hand of MOMO's head, wishing that I could feel the softness of her hair under my skin. Though her eyes still held their shimmering sadness, a smile started creeping over her lips. We both looked back to the screen overhead. Whatever would happen, we would overcome.  
  
We would survive. 


	5. Planned From the Beginning

"Damn," Jr. hissed through his teeth, his face humiliated and burning red with hurt. "That's from when we fought the U-TIC Organization! Those bastards were recording it!" His fists clenched and unclenched. Gaignun, beside him, almost chuckled. This caught my attention more than Jr.'s outburst had. Gaignun put his hand to his chin in thought.  
  
"I see," he said in his insipid voice, "That would explain how the absolute coordinates match. I guess that's their indisputable proof. Even I'm starting to think we did it." At this remark, I turned to the Director of the Foundation, surprised at the tone in his voice.  
  
"Considering the situation, you don't sound very worried," I told him. It wasn't so much a statement on my part as it was some sort of challenge. His mysterious eyes looked to me, one of his eyebrows raising in incredulity. I stared him down, then he turned back to the screen. Possibly feeling the tension, Shelley broke the awkward silence.  
  
"In any event, this is confirmation that the remnants of the U-TIC Organization have infiltrated both the Federation government and the military." The second-in-command stated dryly. I heard Jr. take a sharp breath of air.  
  
"Which means," he said, quieter than he had been since we'd arrived on the bridge, "their next target is..." His unusually blue eyes glanced over to MOMO, who met his gaze. Shion's voice, irritated, broke their stares.   
  
"This is such a blatant lie it's ludicrous," she muttered, seemingly to herself. She looked to Gaignun, "As survivors, if we testify..." She was trying to find a loophole... Any loophole. Gaignun shook his head sadly.  
  
"They'll just claim that you survived because you were in on the conspiracy," the director said quietly. MOMO jumped by my side, making me miss whatever it was that Allen said next. Her golden eyes looked like they had when she had linked directly with the controls on the ship we had used to escape the U-TIC. She was staring out past me into space, then she whirled around to face the elevator.  
  
"Someone's coming," she whispered, although I could hardly hear her. It was true. I could make out the sound of the elevator's gears grinding almost noiselessly. As the Durandal supposedly destroyed the Woglinde on the screen behind me, I moved MOMO around to my back, putting myself between her and whatever was approaching in the elevator. It arrived without a sound. A regal-looking woman surrounded by what must have been near 10 soldiers stepped off the elevator, her commanding voice catching the attention of everyone on the bridge.  
  
"I am Captain Lapis Roman of the Galaxy Federation's Special Ops Command Headquarters, intelligence Bureau," she looked directly at Gaignun Kukai, "I hereby place this ship under custody of the Galaxy Federation." She motioned for the soldiers to go forth, and the spread among the crewmembers like snakes among mice. Quickly, I knelt next to MOMO, squeezing her shoulder gently.  
  
"Stay here," I told her quietly. She nodded solemnly, and hid silently behind a chair. I moved back amongst Shion and the others once more. Before I could say anything to her, I felt one of the soldiers come up behind me and lock my hands together tightly. My instinct told me to fight back, but the pleading of Shion's eyes told me to just go with it. Defeated, I felt the tension in my body subside. We were defeated. Just like that. It was over. I felt despair as Jr., Shion, Allen and chaos were forced to put their hands on their heads. Standard procedure, I thought bitterly to myself. Captain Lapis Roman turned to Shion and Allen.  
  
"I understand you're from the Woglinde." Both of the Vector employees nodded, their faces ashen. Lapis Roman dignified their silent response. "I'll take you in as witnesses. All Vector property will be temporarily confiscated as evidence." Shion's eyes suddenly gained a sad and far-off light.  
  
"KOS-MOS..." she said in an undertone. My ears suddenly picked up the sound of a struggle. I turned, along with Jr., to the source of the noises, and my eyes contracted in fear. MOMO...  
  
A soldier had grabbed her roughly by her right elbow, dragging her forcefully toward Lapis Roman while she struggled against his grip.  
  
"Here's the 100-Series Realian under warrant!" he called, trying to pull her with him. I stepped forward, trying to break toward her, but the soldier behind me grabbed my arm forcefully before I could move too far. It was Jr. who broke loose of his captor's grip and dashed toward MOMO, his voice full of rage.  
  
"Hey!" he shouted, "Don't hurt her!!" I could see it before it happened. He was too rash... I turned away so I didn't have to see it. But I could hear it. The dull sound of the butt of a gun connecting with Jr.'s skull sounded across the bridge, and I winced as he thudded to the floor. I turned again just as the same gun was pointed at his head. MOMO's eyes, fear glittering in their shimmering pools, stared at Jr.'s prostrate body. She glanced up to me, as if begging me to do something... Anything. But I couldn't. I couldn't do anything to stop what was happening. My eyes must have betrayed my thoughts, because MOMO's face fell even more.  
  
I hated it. I hated seeing her face so distraught. I hated not being able to rush to her rescue. I hated the feeling her sad eyes gave me in the pit of my gut. I heard Captain Lapis Roman's shoes click sharply as she approached Jr.'s form. Without looking up from his still body, she issued orders.  
  
"Detain them in a single room, and watch them carefully," she told her subordinates. The soldier holding MOMO gave her an odd look.  
  
"All of them?" he asked. As Lapis Roman looked up, she glanced, ever so briefly, in my direction. I could swear I saw the faintest gleam in her eye. Before I could tell exactly what it supposed to mean, she turned to the soldier.  
  
"Splitting them up will only serve to underman our guardposts. Investigate as much of the ship as possible before we rendezvous with the others." she told him. The soldier paused for a moment, then nodded.  
  
"Yes, ma'am."  
  
As the soldiers rounded us up, two soldiers dragging Jr., I could hear Captain Lapis Roman speaking with Gaignun.  
  
"Gaignun Kukai, you are hereby under arrest for suspicion of treason against the Galaxy Federation. Come with me," she said in her dark tone. I heard no fear in Gaignun's voice as he responded.  
  
"As you wish."  
  
The elevator descended, with us on it, and I could hear no more. Captain Lapis Roman... That gleam in her eyes... What did that woman have planned? As we neared the end of the elevator ride, I could feel someone behind me. I turned my head slightly to see MOMO, clearly still frightened, scooting closer to me. She seemed not to have noticed that I had seen her. Her eyes were on the verge of tears. Slowly, carefully, she slipped her tiny hand into mine, which were still locked behind my back. I felt a shock go through my heart, and I felt feelings I hadn't felt since that day. Without a word, I closed my human hand around hers.  
  
-----  
  
The two soldiers that had brought us to the room stood outside the door, telling us to stay put until Captain Lapis Roman arrived. Jr. had recovered from the blow to the head, and was now sitting with Shion, MOMO and chaos . Allen sat on one of the seats on the perimeter of the room, while I leaned against the wall adjacent to the one Allen sat next to. I had been mulling today's events over and over in my mind in the growing silence. No one spoke. Finally, after the silence had lasted for too long, I raised my head and looked at those who sat around the table in the center of the room.  
  
"It's all orchestrated too well," I muttered softly. Shion looked up, her glasses almost sliding from her nose.  
  
"Huh?" she asked. I knew she had heard what I had said. That wasn't the question she was asking. She wanted to know why I thought the way I did.  
  
"The fleet deployment came too quickly," I said a bit louder, "They must have been prepared to ensure that MOMO would return to them regardless of what happened... Or," I paused in my thoughts, delving a little deeper into the subject, "perhaps ensnaring Second Miltia was part of their plan from the very beginning." A silence lay thick on the room again for a moment, then Jr. chanced a comment.  
  
"As a neutral territory, Second Miltia was invested with a whole bunch of rights and legal privileges after the Miltian Conflict. There are a whole lot of folks who still have problems with that, even outside of the U-TIC Organization," he said, looking up at me as he ended his statement. I nodded in agreement.  
  
"The asteroid where MOMO was imprisoned... I wondered where the information about that place came from," I interjected, now looking at MOMO, who seemed to have calmed down, "Now it seems like it was all part of the plan from the very beginning." MOMO's response was quick.  
  
"Do you mean from when Mommy sent you to rescue me?" she asked. I nodded again, silent. It was then that chaos, who had been silent for a long span of time, decided to speak once more.  
  
"You don't think there are U-TIC members within the Subcommittee itself...?" he asked, his teal eyes darting from person to person for an answer, while earlier it was he who seemed to have all the answers. Surprisingly, it was Allen who spoke up, his head hung low in defeat.  
  
"It's not inconceivable. Perhaps it was the very person who arranged for MOMO's rescue, Dr. Juli Mizrahi herself," Allen pondered. I doubted the notion very much, and MOMO must have felt the same way, for she cried out.  
  
"No! Mommy would never do something like that!" she yelled. Shion was on her side of the argument.  
  
"Allen!" Shion scolded. Allen cringed.  
  
"I... uh... sorry," he murmured. Despite myself, I felt the corners of my lips pull into a smirk. For Shion to scold Allen like that, it was almost as if nothing had happened. I snapped back to reality, however, when the door slid open to reveal Captain Lapis Roman and one other soldier. She walked into the room, which was once again bathed in silence. She surveyed the room quickly.  
  
"The preliminary inquiry shall now begin," she told us. The door closed after her and the soldier, and she sat at the table amongst Shion and MOMO. She was silent, but I saw now that her dark eyes were sparkling, as if they had some tremendous secret to divulge. I suddenly realized that this was true. "I am an agent working for Representative Helmer of the Second Miltian Parliament."  
  
I felt my eyebrows rise in shock. I would never have expected a woman of such rigid respect for the rules would ever deviate from the rules of engagement. Shion was taken by surprise as well, for she gasped. MOMO's face, which had been gloomy, now shone with a new light. Shion's bright eyes moved to the soldier that had come in with Lapis Roman.  
  
"He's also with us," Captain Roman said, reading Shion's eyes. Though she had revealed herself to us, her formality and stiff voice seemed unchanged. "We can go into detail later, but for now I'll just debrief you on the current situation." We all nodded. A tiny glimmer of hope was shining within everyone, and its name was Lapis Roman. "You are presently under the custody of the Federation government and the military," she paused, a softness coming to her face, "I'll be honest with you. The way things are now, within a few hours, she'll be turned over to anti-Miltian forces," she nodded her head to indicate MOMO, then her fierce eyes turned to me, "Specifically the U-TIC Organization. Soon after, the Second Miltian government will be stripped of all its authority. At this moment, Representative Helmer is working with the leaders of the Miltian Parliament to buy us additional time. However, our opponents' skillful manipulation requires us to find concrete proof of your innocence."  
  
"But..." Shion said, nervously wringing her hands, "...how?"  
  
"That's the question," Lapis Roman muttered, "We need something that would give conclusive evidence of your innocence."  
  
"Conclusive evidence..." Shion thought out loud, the spoke to Lapis Roman, "What about the Woglinde's black box?"  
  
"We've already recovered that. Unfortunately, sometime after the final gate-out, it was modified to be exactly the same as the video recording, down to the time axis," Roman refuted. Jr.'s face flushed again, and he hid his face in his hands.  
  
"Not to mention, I shot up the database on that U-TIC battleship..." he growled, angry more at himself than anything else. I then saw chaos trying to help.  
  
"What about the Durandal's database? A record of the battle against the U-TIC should still be there. Can't we use that to prove our innocence?" chaos asked. Hope moved back into Lapis Roman's face.  
  
"Is that a standard database?" she asked.  
  
"Yeah," Jr. replied.  
  
Another silence fell on us like a lead weight. I felt the pressure of the oppressing silence, and I shifted my weight onto my other foot. The sound I caused may have provoked chaos into speaking.  
  
"Is that a problem?" he asked. Lapis Roman sighed.  
  
"Yes...Standard databases are too easily modified. I'm not certain how reliable they would be as evidence. If we had something that even the owner couldn't change, say, a system with an AAA class encryption, then maybe..." she trailed off. This caused Jr. to jump to his feet.  
  
"Wha...? Triple A?!" his temper flared up, and I nearly flinched at the sudden increase in volume, "You don't find systems with that kind of protection just lying around! For something like that, you'd need the Federation government's motherframe, or the U.M.N. operating system!" Shion blinked several times in succession, as if a thought had suddenly flung itself to the front of her mind. She looked around the room, making eye contact with me last, then back to Captain Lapis Roman.  
  
"We..." she started fleetingly, as if trying to remember what she had been thinking. Jr. looked to her.  
  
"What?"  
  
"We have one!" she nearly shouted, her mouth turning up into a smile. She looked at Allen, as if expecting him to remember as well. He stared, then nearly jumped at the realization.  
  
"Oh!" he cried, "KOS-MOS!"  
  
A light seemed to come on in everyone's head. MOMO's bright face turned to me, and I could feel the warmth of the joy coming from deep inside her. KOS-MOS, I thought. She was our only chance now. I returned MOMO's gaze.  
  
KOS-MOS was her only hope now. 


	6. Just a Bodyguard?

AN: I get all of the in-game dialogue from a GameFAQS.com script. Unfortunately, it did not contain the dialogue that occurred when the party tries to leave without their wepons. To say I adlibbed a bit would be a severe understatement. Forgive me! Oh, and please... Contact me, either via e-mail or review, if you want me to continue this story. I'll only coninue if my fans wish it to be so. Anyway, enjoy the fic! *disappears in a puff of smoke*  
  
"KOS-MOS?!" Jr. gasped, his face alight. Shion nodded enthusiastically.  
  
"Yes. KOS-MOS' database has a recording of the battle against the Gnosis onboard the Woglinde. If we enter that as evidence..." she began. Allen interrupted her abruptly.  
  
"Yeah, but in order to copy the record, we need the keys from both the Federation government and Headquarters," he interjected. Shion had an answer.  
  
"By diving into the Encephalon and experiencing the record ourselves, we can make a copy through the Connection Gear," she looked to Allen, as if expecting him to find a way to rebut her statement. He did.  
  
"B...But...that's impossible without the dive equipment," he stammered. Shion answered quickly.  
  
"How about the Service Module's Simple Dive Unit?" she asked. I could have rolled my eyes. They sounded like a bickering couple, arguing back and forth like that.  
  
"You've got to be kidding!" Allen shouted, making Shion flinch. He calmed down a notch, looking to his feet, "besides, that's a violation of protocol!" Shion's eyes grew unexpectedly fierce then, her glare the same as it had been given to me earlier that day at the beach.  
  
"We don't have any other choice, do we?" She turned away, her face turning red, "Oh, I'm so sick and tired of protocol..." Jr. looked like he was going to say something, but Shion beat him to the punch, "The real question is, how do we get to KOS-MOS?" Captain Lapis Roman looked as if she were contemplating something, her eyes going from the floor to me. Her face set, she stood from her seat, a portable U.M.N. module in her hand. To my surprise, she aimed it at me. Her finger came down on the button deftly, and I felt my hands unlock from behind my back with the welcome release of pressure. Utterly relieved, I brought my hands around to the front of me and tried to get the circulation running again in my right hand. Lapis Roman handed the module to Shion, who took it apprehensively.  
  
"That'll open any locked doors you come across. I'll just saw that we were careless. But," she walked from where she stood next to Shion to where I still stood. She stared me straight in the eyes, unmoving, "to make it look legitimate, you'll need to knock me out." I was silent for only a second, then I stopped rubbing the circulation back into my hand.  
  
"You sure? I asked, checking her face. She didn't flinch.  
  
"Otherwise, no one would believe it, right?" There was a gleam in her eyes that was just like the one she had seen her give me back on the bridge. I glanced up at everyone, meeting their eyes in turn. Each and every pair of eyes stared back at me, telling me silently that I didn't have to worry, that all would be fine. Only one pair of eyes was hesitant. MOMO's eyes were frightened. She didn't want to see anyone get hurt. But... this was what I had to do. I looked back to Lapis Roman, cracking the knuckles in my right hand faintly.  
  
"You've got a point," I said, trying to tell MOMO with the tone of my voice that I didn't want to hurt her either. Captain Lapis Roman squeezed her eyes shut, ready for the blow. I could see her whole body go tense.   
  
"Go easy on me, okay?" she asked. It was a soldier's request. I didn't deny it. MOMO pulled her face into Shion's uniform, hiding her eyes from the damage that was about to be done. I took Lapis Roman's shoulder in my left hand, and I felt her jump, tensing before the blow. Holding back slightly, I threw a punch squarely into the woman's abdomen with my other hand. It sunk in nearly to my knuckles, and her whole body buckled forwards with the pain. Her eyes shot open, mostly because of the shock, then closed again as she lost consciousness in my hands. I gently lay her down on the floor. Before I moved on, I saluted her with a tiny motion of my hand. Captain Lapis Roman... She really was one of a kind. I realized then that the other soldier needed to be dealt with as well. He bared himself for my attack, and I felt a short pang of guilt.  
  
"Forgive me, I said quietly as I sunk my fist into his stomach. He made a slight gurgle of pain, then fell to the floor. I stepped over his body, and MOMO followed quietly. I turned just in time to see Jr. pass Lapis Roman's still from. He beamed.  
  
"Thanks," he whispered, even though she couldn't hear, "You're pretty cool!"  
  
I remembered then that two soldiers lay in wait just outside the door, just in case anything like this were to happen. When I thought about disposing of them, I felt close to no guilt. They had shown us no mercy, so why should I show them any now? MOMO must have read my thoughts, for she touched my arm lightly, causing me to turn. Her eyes, pleading, told me no to go all out. It hit me then, with the force of a speeding bullet. Jr. was right. I was just a bodyguard to her. My only purpose was to protect her, and I was nothing more. I was only needed for my strength to ensure her safety. I felt a pain in my heart then. I turned back to the door with more swiftness than MOMO suspected, for she started slightly. Ready to open the door, I spoke softly to her.  
  
"You might want to stand back, MOMO," I told the Realian. She nodded, and stepped back to where Jr. and the others stood. As soon as the door slid open, my battle reflexes came into effect, and I extended my arm blade and held it up to the throat of the soldier standing to the left of the door, grabbing the throat of the other soldier with my free hand. The tip of the blade playing at his throat, the soldier gasped and moved for his communicator. I shoved the tip of the blade closer to his neck. He got the idea. I motioned for the others to move out of the door, and, one by one, they filed past me. I dropped the soldier from the grip of my right hand, and he collapsed, gasping for air. I retracted the blade from the soldier's neck area and punched him roughly in the chest while he was distracted. Before I followed the others, I took both their communicators and crushed them under my foot.  
  
My footsteps echoed loudly in the once again empty halls as I caught up with those trooping on ahead of me. They were standing next to the door that led out of the area we were being contained in. Shion had an unnatural urgency in her voice as I approached. MOMO looked up at me as I neared.  
  
"I think we should find our weapons before we leave," she said to everyone in a hushed tone. Everyone seemed to agree with this. The shimmering gaze that MOMO had given me before still hung on me. I made cautious eye contact, unsure of what she would say. But the look in her eyes was softer than it had been only minutes before. She didn't blink, holding eye contact with me. As the others made their way down the hall, our gaze wasn't shifted.  
  
"Is something wrong?" I asked quietly. She looked down the hall to where the two Federation soldiers sat incapacitated and Captain Lapis Roman lay curled on the floor. Her eyes then flicked back to mine.  
  
"Do you think they'll be okay?" she asked, then she blushed slightly, looking to her feet, "I mean, Lapis Roman and that other soldier?" It was hard to believe how compassionate this little Realian could be. At every new turn, she seemed to surprise me. She cared so much about everyone, even those that were our enemies. I realized then that such kindness had most likely left my heart years ago. Except when it came to her. I looked back down the hall as well, then nodded.  
  
"I didn't hit them too hard," I assured her. I could have used much more force if I didn't have so much respect for that young Captain, "They should be fine." I saw her smile then, and, to me, it felt like the much welcome dawn after a frigidly cold night. For a moment, it seemed like I couldn't breathe, then I heard chaos' warm voice call back to us.  
  
"Ziggy, MOMO! Aren't you coming with us?" he asked. I looked up suddenly and nodded. MOMO must have though the suddenness of my reaction quite humorous, for I heard her playful giggle by my side. The chiming of her laughter was a sound most welcome at a time such as we were facing. As I looked back to her again, the radiant smile still hung on her face, and I felt the beginnings of a smirk tugging on my features. With that, we set off after the others.  
  
The room holding our weapons was relatively easy to access, particularly thanks to the device Lapis Roman had given to Shion. It was dodging the sporadically placed guards that was difficult. Six people, including Allen, weren't hard to spot in those small halls. So it was up to chaos and myself to distract and dispose of said guards. It was relatively easy; they seemed a tad overworked. As everyone shuffled into the room, I remained outside the door, my eyes in constant search of any movement. After a few minutes of awkward shuffling, Shion emerged, her face expressing her thanks. I nodded in silence, heading in to take back my own beam pod. Passing MOMO on my way in, I ruffled her hair lightly. Once inside, I took my weapon gruffly in my hand, pressing the cold metal into the warm flesh of my palm. I turned back, seeing now that everyone but Jr. had moved on, both of his guns cocked and at the ready, standing guard. I could have laughed. How it felt to see someone else playing the bodyguard...  
  
The rest of the journey to the dock was reasonably easy, mostly due to the fact that that it wasn't just chaos and me accosting the guards. As we moved amongst the soldiers, either knocking them out cold or locking them in some room sans communicators, I realized how difficult it would be to access the Elsa. As we moved to get on the train to take us to the dock, I gently grabbed Shion's shoulder. She turned.  
  
"Shion," I calmly whispered, "I feel that we may not be able to get to the Elsa through her main doors. They'll most likely be heavily guarded." The idea seemed to dawn in her mind as well. "Do you know any alternative routes onto the ship?" I asked. She looked down, as if trying to remember. I saw chaos approach slowly.  
  
"What about the cargo elevator?" he suggested.  
  
"If we can find a way to get to it without being seen..." she muttered. We all stepped onto the train, and Jr. stuck his guns into their holsters.  
  
"Not to mention that if one guard sees us, they'll all see us..." Jr. interjected. MOMO, her hands now clasped together, closed her eyes. Only a few moments spanned until she spoke again, without opening her eyes.  
  
"There's a ladder leading to the level of the cargo elevator on the far east side of the dock," she informed us. Opening her eyes, she looked to Jr. A short fit of what felt like jealousy grabbed at my heart, but I dismissed it huffily. "If there were some sort of distraction, we would be able to get to the elevator unnoticed!" A smirk was now forming on Jr.'s childish face, and he took only one of his ancient guns out of its holster.  
  
"No problem," he muttered. As the train slowed toward its eventual stop, we al moved to the sides of the doors, so as to stay hidden. The doors slid open noiselessly. I dared a peek outside. Just as I'd thought: Crawling with soldiers. How would he pull off such an elaborate distraction...?  
  
I was answered swiftly. Jr. fired his single gun a total of four times at a gas tank sitting near the shuttle that lead from the Durandal. It exploded with a loud report, catching the attention of all the soldiers. All but those guarding the doors to the Elsa. As swiftly and as quietly as possible, we made our way to the ladder.  
  
Once at the opening to the cargo elevator, chaos punched in a few codes, and the elevator came rumbling up to meet us. Undoubtedly, this would have caught the attention of Captain Matthews, if not Hammer and Tony as well. The cargo elevator, when it finally arrived, seemed only large enough to fit five people with moderate comfort. This being said, I glanced at MOMO and, without a second thought, scooped her up into my arms and stepped onto the platform. It was indeed a tight fit, but, with provocation from chaos, our mode of transportation slowly made its way downward. It started off with a jolt, and I felt MOMO's arms fly up and land around my neck for support. For some unapparent reason, I felt blood rush up to my face. After a while, the elevator ended its journey with yet another jarring jolt. I set MOMO down, her face gleeful once more. Had I known how long it would be until I saw her smile like that, I would have cherished the moment more.  
  
"Thank you, Ziggy," she told me. I must have muttered something along the lines of, "It's nothing," for she giggled lightly again. Shion emerged from the elevator beside us.  
  
"There's no time to loose," she told everyone, "We have to hurry to the maintenance lab," her voice was full of caution. It was the fastest trip I had ever taken through the innards of the Elsa. We may have been running, but I can't fully remember. Only when the door to the maintenance lab slid open and we saw the black apparatus in which KOS-MOS "slept" did I become fully aware of everything going on around me again. Shion picked up the red-tinted dive unit and sat directly across from KOS-MOS' module. Allen brought out his portable U.M.N. screen. Shion breathed deeply.  
  
"Here we go," she said, almost to herself. "Allen," he jumped to attention, "handle backup for me, all right?"  
  
"Roger. Opening Interconnection," he told her. I glanced over at the red-head as he seemed to be gathering the courage to say something. "Don't worry. I'll back you up no matter what happens." Shion smiled at his comment.  
  
"Thanks," she said, almost in a whisper. She turned to KOS-MOS' module and took another deep breath. "Ready, KOS-MOS?"  
  
I had never witnessed a "dive" before, but I knew that whatever was happening was not natural. It felt as if Shion's dive unit was pulling on my entire body. I looked around to see that I was not the only person experiencing this phenomenon. Jr. was the only one of us who could express anything in words, and even they weren't all that germane to the fact that we were all being affected by this anomaly.  
  
"What the...?!" he yelled. His words and the look of pure terror on MOMO's pale face were the last I remembered.  
  
Then there was darkness. 


	7. Fevered Memories

I woke to the sound of rifle shots.  
  
My eyelids were heavy, as if I had not lifted them in days. When I finally was able to open my eyes, that there was nearly no light, wherever I was. The occasional sound of gunfire shattered the otherwise silent scene. The ground was rough and pebbly beneath me, and the sky above was dotted with dim stars. Faintly, I heard the crackling of fires nearby. Suddenly, I forced myself to sit up, aware that I had no idea where I was or, worse, where MOMO was. With my sudden movement, my head swam violently, and I grabbed my forehead with my human hand, wishing only for this unfamiliar world to stop its spinning. Momentarily, the short wave of nausea subsided, and it was then that I heard a meek voice come from behind me.  
  
"Are you okay, Ziggy?" I heard it ask. I turned, and there she sat nervously, with her legs crossed in front of her, on a pile of rubble not far from where I sat. Relief washed over me with a suddenness to rival the earlier attack of dizziness. For one, brief moment, I felt the corners of my mouth lift slightly.  
  
"MOMO!" I nearly cried, overwhelmed with the joy that she was here and not lost in some other place. She saw the sudden change in my demeanor, and she seemed taken aback by the look on my face. I quickly erased it as I stood, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Err..." I started, trying to find the words I knew were there, "Yes, I'm fine. What about you? Are you hurt?" MOMO shook her head, but I saw her wince slightly. Immediately, I was at her side, her right arm in my hands. I touched her elbow gently, and I heard her take a quick, painful intake of breath. As if trying to nullify her reaction, MOMO started to withdraw her arm.  
  
"It's nothing, really," she tried to tell me. Meeting her eyes, I let her know that it was definitely not nothing. We both looked at her arm once again.  
  
"Do you have any nanospray?" I asked lightly, letting her arm rest again on her lap. Slowly, MOMO nodded.  
  
"There's only a little bit left, but I can't put it on with my left hand..." she said as if she had already tried to heal the wound. I took whatever was left of the nanospray and I applied it to her injured elbow. Almost immediately, it began to heal. She sighed in relief.  
  
"Is that better?" I asked, tucking the now empty nanospray away.  
  
"Yes, it's much better," she said, moving her elbow around, then she looked up to me, her eyes telling me that it was not fully healed. So much for the great advances in nanotechnology...  
  
MOMO's eyes then glanced over my shoulder, and I could hear what had attracted her attention. Jr. lay on his back, his face contorted in pain, unconscious. He had been knocked out good by something. It looked like he would be out for at least another hour or so. Another sound caught my ear, but this one was not a natural sound. It came from above. Without warning, I scooped MOMO up from her spot and grabbed Jr. roughly by the collar, taking them both out of the open to behind a wrecked vehicle. Just as we moved, a large, black helicopter moved overhead, its bright searchlight scouring the ground where Jr. had just been sprawled. It joined a large fleet of similar-looking helicopters, which were all quiet and hovering low to the ground. Searchlights darted here and there, though in search of what I was not sure.   
  
In our hasty dash for cover, I had brought MOMO close to me, wanting to shield her if by any chance we were discovered. It was at that moment that I felt her curl herself into me, her body racking with quiet sobs. Surprised, I looked down to see her golden eyes spilling hot tears onto my chest as she pulled herself closer.  
  
"Ziggy," she choked through the tears. I felt a surge of compassion well up inside me. Her thin voice came through again, "I'm... I'm scared," she told me. Slowly, I lifted my hand from my side, and I started running my hand over her hair softly. I made a quiet shushing sound as I smoothed her hair under my human hand.  
  
"Don't cry, MOMO," I whispered, almost pleadingly. She sniffled in return. For minutes on end we sat there, MOMO's tears wetting my shoulder and me trying futilely to comfort her. After I thought that I could never make her tears go away, and my hand fell from her hair, she took my hand in hers, her eyes closed still.  
  
"Please don't stop, Ziggy," she said, her voice full of hidden tears. "I don't know why, but it helps. Please, don't stop." More, new tears slid down her pale face. Once again, I passed my hand through her soft, pink hair. After only a few minutes, she relaxed in my arms. She was asleep. But I didn't stop running my hand through her hair. As much as it had helped her, it helped me as well. The feeling of someone small and shivering in my arms brought back so many fevered memories from my past. The feel of his hair in my hands... The shaking of his body as he cried...  
  
No. I wouldn't let the past rule my present. And at the present, I had no idea where we were. All I knew was the faint rifle shot far in the distance and the muted sound of helicopter blades whipping the air in the darkness. The rising and falling of MOMO's chest against my own and the steady sound of her breathing calmed me, despite the ominous surrounding. Long minutes passed while I waited for the two of them to wake. On the occasion, I would see Jr.'s face contort in pain, maybe because he was having some sort of nightmare. Every once and a while, I would stroke MOMO's hair again, usually when she stirred or once when she whimpered softly in her sleep. She deserved her rest. It had been one hell of a day.  
  
The steady sound of marching feet awoke both of my sleeping wards. Jr. grunted loudly as he shoved himself to his feet, while MOMO could only blink, the redness of tears still in her eyes. I motioned for the two of them to duck as whatever was marching moved past our hiding spot. As they did, I felt my jaw drop involuntarily.  
  
Children. A whole platoon of blonde-haired, bright-eyed children. They all carried rifles over their shoulders, marching in union. This so much was not was surprised me, but the fact that they all were eerily reminiscent of Jr. that sent a chill down my spine. Just as I thought this, Jr. approached at my side, rubbing his head in pain.  
  
"No way..." he whispered in awe. "It can't be..."  
  
"Jr.?" MOMO asked, her voice cracking slightly. He paused, keeping silent as the child soldiers passed. When they were just out of hearing range, he continued.  
  
"No doubt about it... They're U.R.T.V." He said quietly. U.R.T.V.? The name triggered some sort of memory, but I couldn't grasp its meaning.  
  
"I see," I muttered, "It would appear that this is more than just a hallucination," I turned to Jr., "What is this place? Do you recognize it?" He knew the soldiers... Surely he would know where we were...? He kept silent, introspective. "Jr...."I said again, trying to coax him into speaking.  
  
"What?!" he shouted, making his voice echo off of the rubble around us. MOMO gasped slightly, but I sat unmoved. Even though he had not phased me, I felt the beginnings of ire rising within me. This was no time to act immature.  
  
"I'm asking you if you recognize this place," I said, hoping the slight anger didn't show in my voice. Jr. must have hinted my tone of voice though, for he exhaled and looked to his feet.  
  
"Yeah, I do." His blue eyes traveled to where the U.R.T.V. has disappeared, "If this isn't an illusion, and my memory's correct, this is...Miltia." He paused just long enough for this to hit me like a slap to the face. Miltia?! I felt my knees go weak, and I staggered slightly. Thankfully no one seemed to notice, because Jr. continued, "From fourteen years ago." He looked to MOMO, then, without warning, he dashed out from behind our hiding spot and ran as fast as he could away from us in the direction the U.R.T.V. had been heading. I stood and moved to go after him.  
  
"Where are you going?" I tried to call. But he was gone. I stopped my pursuit, watching his form recede into darkness. What was going on? I knew that Jr. was rash, but to be so rash as to dash out into enemy territory without first analyzing the situation? He had said this was Miltia... I looked around me, my eyes finally adjusted to the dim light; I saw large buildings dotting the horizon that looked oddly familiar. Pain shot through my heart as I saw the once new skyscraper that had been built near our home. Our home. MOMO looked out to where Jr. had gone as she walked up next to me.  
  
"I wonder what's troubling him? It looks as though he's trying to chase after those people..." Her comments brought me back to the present. I shook my head.  
  
"I'm sure he has his reasons." I was almost ready to leave him to his own devices, but my conscience took over, and I sighed, "Nonetheless, we don't know what's going on and we can't let him go off alone." Looking down to the little Realian, who I had been cradling in my arms only minutes ago, and motioned for her to follow me.  
  
As we chased after Jr. in the darkness, dodging the searchlights from the black helicopters I know found to be from the U-TIC, I tried not to think of where I was. I tried to tell myself that we had most likely been pulled into Shion's Encephalon dive... but my heart was telling me, 'This is Miltia. You remember Miltia, don't you?' Yes, I thought bitterly, I remembered Miltia. Though this Miltia was many years after the Miltia I had known. But even though many years had passed, I knew this world. I knew the street that MOMO and I were now traveling. It had been the street my stepson and I had taken so many times to get the new subway. He had laughed as we passed all the shops he wished to get into. Now those stores were nothing but rubble and fire.  
  
I was then reminded of the look in Jr.'s eyes just before he had run off. It was the look I was so familiar with. He remembered this pace, Miltia from fourteen years ago, and whatever had happened here to make the color drain from his face and his eyes dilate with fear. Whatever I had experienced on Miltia, he must have seen something of the same caliber. Something made him question himself, just as I had. I had failed my test, I thought, frowning. Perhaps... I trailed off in my thoughts, almost failing to notice that we had come upon Jr. MOMO reached him first, and she reached for his shoulder.  
  
"Every single one of them is infected!" I heard him whisper under his breath, and I saw what he was speaking about. All the children I had seen pass us earlier were using their rifles now, and they were using them on innocent bystanders. The only different factor I noticed was a single black-haired U.R.T.V that was among them, but not with them. Jr. seemed to recognize this one, for he tried to step forward toward him. MOMO's hand clasped on his shoulder before he could chase the U.R.T.V., which were moving on slowly.  
  
"Are you all right?" MOMO asked. Jr. shoved his hands in his pockets.  
  
"I-I'm fine..." he muttered. MOMO knew this wasn't true.  
  
"Jr...?"  
  
"I said I'm fine!!" He shouted, making her jump back, gasping. That was it. My temper flared. There was no reason for him to yell at her. She had done nothing. I clenched my fists. But it seemed Jr. had seen his error as well, for his face flushed with embarrassment.  
  
"S...Sorry... I didn't mean to..." He turned away from MOMO, looking to street below his feet. "Damn it...what the hell is this? What's going on here?" He took a deep breath and sniffed slightly. My temper dropped suddenly. Had he been... crying? After a few moments of silence, he turned to me, a sad smile trying to form on his face. "You think we should look for Shion and the others?" he asked. I nodded, looking down the street to where I knew the subway to be. It was brand new when I was living on Miltia, so it may still be standing.  
  
"That would be the best course of action," I said, "The subway is the best way to get through the city is Shion and the others are here." Jr. looked up sharply, alarmed.  
  
"How'd you know there was a subway here?" Jr. asked. I stiffened, trying not to make eye contact with him. Could I tell them? Could I tell them about my stepson's shining face whenever he watch the subway cars arrive? How his laughter filled the otherwise empty car we took home from his school? I felt my fists clench together again involuntarily, and my eyes fell to the pavement.  
  
"Ziggy?" MOMO's timid voice came. There was no way I could tell them. I couldn't burden them with my past. I was troubled enough when it was only on my shoulders. I didn't need to weigh them down as well. I shook my head, looking back to MOMO and Jr.  
  
"It doesn't matter. We should get moving." I headed for the entrance to the subway station, but Jr. blocked my way.  
  
"Hey, old man, I asked you a question," he said under his breath. I glared at him silently, then moved around him. He was about to object, but I interjected my words loudly.  
  
"Let's just say... that I'd rather forget everything I've experienced on Miltia," I told him. I expected a witty retort, but instead, he gave a short grunt.  
  
"I can agree with you that much, cyborg." Jr. shoved his hands deep into his pockets, brooding.   
  
Miltia.... It meant something to the both of us, though neither of us knew the others' plight. I would soon learn that each and every one of us had ties to that miserable planet. So many things... tied back to Miltia.  
  
When the three of us took the stairs to the underground, my memories only increased. The new terminal, while mostly piles of rubble now, must have been built over the original, or even simply added onto the terminal I had known. Whispers of the past were everywhere in that abandoned place. Names I did not know and some that I recognized were whispered everywhere... In the halls, between the columns, even from the very walls. I knew it would come, but that didn't soften the blow for me. The faintest whisper of my stepson's name echoed in the back of my mind. For only a second was it there, but that was all it needed to do its damage. I fell behind Jr. and MOMO, my steps slowing until they came to a stop. Everything around me was so familiar and yet so alien. I felt an emotion trying to rise from deep inside of my heart. I pushed it back stubbornly. I heard it cry out with a tiny voice from within me.  
  
'How long has it been since you cried for him, Jan?' It cried. This only caused me to push it farther away. That wasn't who I was anymore. I wasn't who I used to be. I didn't need to... I didn't need to cry anymore, I told myself. But unwillingly the languid feeling of sadness spread through me. Distracted by my unwanted feelings, I failed to notice that MOMO had approached me and was staring at me intently. Before I had noticed her presence, she took my hand in hers. It startled me, and I jumped slightly. But her face held such a warm, sad smile that all of the sadness that had been inside me dispersed as if it had never been there. Still holding my hand, the Realian pulled me into the darkness of the subway.  
  
"If you know your way around here, Ziggy," she said in her sweet undertone, "then we'll have no problem finding Shion and the others." I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to tell her why I knew my way through this new version of an old, old city. I wanted to tell her how low the probability was that Shion would even be in this city. But I couldn't. I couldn't hurt her. I could only nod, feeling the weight of her hand in mine, bringing back hidden memories of a haunting past. 


	8. Tears of an Angel

Leading others was not a new feeling for me. I had done it as a profession, back in the days when I cared about living. I had commanded and given orders to elongate the lives of those around me. But leading MOMO and Jr. through the nearly black underground tunnel system I hardly knew on a planet I'd rather forget in a time fourteen years ago, on the other hand, was a bit of a new experience. My night vision was slightly improved due to the many "upgrades" I'd had over nearly 100 years as a cyborg, so seeing wasn't the problem. It was knowing where the hell I was going. Sure, this expanse of tunnel was very much like the tunnel system that had existed in my time, but this was new and advanced beyond my knowledge. I was basically "in the dark," if I may use the expression.  
  
Not only this, but also every move we made was magnified by the receptive tunnels that curved around us. MOMO's foot fall sounded like the sound of a large rock crashing upon the ground, not to mention my own footsteps. If I had thought that I had made unnecessary noise before, it was nothing to what was being made below Miltia as we walked the tunnels. As softly as I tried to walk, the cavernous tunnel picked up every minor buzz and clank of the machinery in my legs. If something foul lay in wait in front or behind of us, it was undoubtedly aware of our presence by then.   
  
But nothing came.  
  
There was nothing but a 100-series Realian prototype, the heir to the Kukai Foundation, and an outdated cyborg.  
  
Had I known where I had wanted to go, the journey would have continued with much more celerity and hope. But there was near nil of either. All I wished was that MOMO did not feel the same despair that I did. I hoped only that the knowledge of the futility of our search wasn't projected through me and into her. My eyes, without provocation, fell to MOMO, who was plodding along next to me.. Like a blast of hot air, memories swept over me. The dank, dark subway tunnel was suddenly lit by glowing orange lights. I found myself sitting in the cushioned seat of a subway car instead of traipsing through the tunnels. The atmosphere had become overwhelmingly warm and hazy, not cold and hard as before. My eyes still fell on the person standing, or sitting, next to me... Only it was not MOMO any longer.  
  
"How was work today, Dad?" His voice rang in my ears, and my heart ached with more passion than I had felt since my death. As if I were part of some recording, I felt my lips move and voice resonate as if against my will.  
  
"It was fine, I guess," I muttered, "Nothing more exciting than a spilt cup of coffee mug." The face of the boy sitting next to me lit up, a wide smile playing on his features.  
  
"Aww, that's too bad," he chimed, "You never get to fight any bad guys!" His round face stared up at mine, and I felt my lips pull back into a wide smile, and I laughed loudly, something I hadn't done for nearly 100 years. I ruffled his hair with my left hand and was astounded to find that I could actually feel his coarse knit hat under my skin.  
  
"I wouldn't want to hog all the fun, now would I?" My voice went without my consent. My step-son laughed with me, and I pulled the cap down over his eyes playfully.  
  
"Daaaaaad..." he said, pulling out the word on purpose. He then lifted the cap from his eyes, and they sparkled back at me. With a distorted call, the subway car operator came over the speaker.  
  
"Next stop, Miltia Park, home to the U.M.N. Mascot, green verdant forests and the best restaurants on Miltia." I looked from the speakers to my step-son, whose face brightened at the mention of his favorite spot in the city.  
  
Like the crack of a whip, I was sent back to the musty subway tunnel, the memory ended. I realized that I had stopped walking again, and MOMO and Jr. had turned around to look at me.  
  
"Hey, old man!" Jr.'s voice cried, "You coming or not?" My head snapped up from where I had been staring at the ground. His arms were folded across his chest, and he motioned with his head that we should keep moving. MOMO, on the other hand, took a step toward me.  
  
"Are you feeling all right, Ziggy?" she asked.   
  
"Yes, I'm-" My eyes caught the tiniest shaft of light in the darkness, and my eyes moved up to where it had been coming from. "There," I whispered. The two of them followed my gaze to where a ladder rose high above us, leading into darkness. The miniscule ray of light seemed to be coming from a partially uncovered manhole, to where the ladder seemed to be leading. For some reason, I thought that the memory I had just witnessed was trying to lead me up there.  
  
"What do you think is up there?" Jr. asked.  
  
"I'm not sure," I tried to lie, "but this has been the only exit I've seen since we entered the subway." Jr. nonchalantly sauntered up to me, then whispered something as low as he could muster.  
  
"I think you know more than you're letting on, cyborg," he told me in a low tone. Resentment burned inside me. He was a little hypocrite!  
  
"I believe I could say the same about you," I muttered, turning toward the ladder. Jr.'s heat signature began burning as I left him to mull it over in his head.  
  
I tested the ladder tentatively, feeling if it would hold my weight. It squealed slightly. Backing away, I looked the old metal over, checking it for signs of wear. It definitely was not well cared for, or very old. Spots of rust were dabbled everywhere. I turned to the smaller Jr. and MOMO.  
  
"MOMO," I said quietly, though my voice echoed loudly, "I think that you and Jr. should go up first, just in case the ladder isn't able to hold my weight." She gave me a look of horror.  
  
"Then what would happen to you?"  
  
"You shouldn't worry about that," I told her. "Most likely, nothing will go wrong. I just don't want to take any chances." She stared at me intensely for a few moments, then nodded solemnly.   
  
"Okay," MOMO said in a hushed tone. She took off for the ladder, Jr. following after her. I saw him shoot me another questioning glance. The both of them worked their way upward, the ladder groaning under their combined weight. I watched them go, and shielded my eyes as they lifted the manhole cover off, letting light pour into the tunnel below. They climbed out, then I saw MOMO's face peer back down at me.  
  
"Aren't you coming, Ziggy?" I heard her ask.  
  
"Yes," I responded, taking two of the ladder's rungs in my hands, "I'm heading up now." I took my foot off the ground and placed it on the lowest run of the ladder. Immediately I knew that it would not hold me for very long at all. Cautiously, I started up. It squeaked in agony as step by step I forced my way upward. I glanced up to see MOMO's pink hair framing her worried face, sunlight outlining her form. Her features were a vision of pain. She looked like an angel just then, the way the light seemed not to just surround her but meld with her .A warning groan from the ladder beneath me made me lose my train of thought and convinced me to keep moving.  
  
"Ziggy, don't stand on that-!" MOMO tried to warn me, but it had been too late. The rung I had just put my foot up onto snapped with a deafening report. My other foot slipped in a chain reaction that had me dangling helplessly by my arms. MOMO gasped loudly. Straining, I pulled myself up, finding tenable footing. I quickly made my way up the rest of the ladder, extricating myself without another foul up. Though I had not been in real terror, my heart was hammering away in my chest. MOMO, as an Observational Realian, must have noticed this too, for she knelt next to where I now sat on one knee.  
  
"Are you okay?" she asked, her hand raising as if to feel my heartbeat. I took her hand and lay it back into her lap.  
  
"I'm fine," I told her, "I'm just glad that you and Jr. didn't have to face the same danger." MOMO's face pulled back into a smile, but it was such a heart-wrenchingly sad smile that I had partially wished that she had not tried. It was then that I felt strange feelings starting to evince themselves. I wanted to pull her into me, wipe the sadness from her face, make sure she came to no harm. I wanted to protect her, to see that she would never have to cry again. When I had seen her cry... My heart burned with a searing pain. I never wanted to see her cry again. But it was a wish to remain unfulfilled, for Jr.'s voice, full of disbelief, broke the silence.  
  
"Man..." Jr. breathed, "You gotta be kidding..." MOMO stood and moved to join him, as I did then as well.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked, then her eyes moved to where Jr. was staring. "Oh..." I looked up as well, taking in the sight of a very large building. As soon as my eyes rose to it, I saw the sky glowing. As unimaginable as it seemed, the sky seemed to be shifting colors. As I was mesmerized by this, Jr. saw it as commonplace, as his eyes remained fixed on the building.  
  
"The U-TIC Organization's central tower... Labrynthos," he whispered. MOMO cocked her head.  
  
"Labrynthos?" the Realian asked. Jr. didn't get a chance to answer, for a booming voice filled the square. I immediately found the source of the voice to be a man standing on top of the tower Labrynthos.  
  
"Hallelujah!" the man cried boisterously, "'And the sea gave up the dead which were in it... and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them... and they were judged every man according to their works!'" I realized that he was quoting something, but I wasn't sure just what. MOMO, by my side, seemed to jump when the man spoke.  
  
"That voice," she whispered, "That's... That's Daddy!" I nearly jumped out of my skin.  
  
"What?!" I asked, astonished at what she had just uttered. Without another word, her eyes locked on the man, she started to dash forward. But there was no way that I was letting her go, and my hand reached out to grab her wrist. "MOMO!" I cried, feeling my emotions getting the better of me, "Stop! Where are you going?!" She tugged and strained against my grip, and those actions alone made pain jolt through me. She wanted to get away from me.  
  
"Let me go!" she pleaded, her eyes brimming with tears. It was the first time since my death that I had felt true hurt. "Daddy!" MOMO's voice cried, "Daddy's calling for me!" My eyes bolted to where the man stood, anger and wonder seething in me.  
  
"'Daddy'?! Is that really him?" I asked. Jr. answered for me.  
  
"That's Joachim Mizrahi... without a doubt..." Jr. mumbled lowly. I felt my grip on MOMO's arm loosen.  
  
"So that's... Joachim Mizrahi..." I said quietly. We all sat in silence as Mizrahi continued his tirade.  
  
"'And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire! Rejoice, all ye! The time for feasting has come!'" That was the last that anyone was to hear of Joachim Mizrahi. From seemingly out of nowhere, some sort of explosive device was hurled at Mizrahi, and his body, surrounded in flames, plunged off of the top of the building. MOMO's whole body went rigid as she saw her father plummet toward the ground. Finally, her voice found her.  
  
"Nooooooo!!" The suffering in her voice caused me to lose my entire grip on her arm. Futilely, I tried to retake my hold on her, but she had already dashed to where Joachim Mizrahi 's body was swiftly approaching the ground. I saw her arms stretch out before her, trying to rescue him from his inevitable shattering end. Her face, etched with pain, was interrupted by sporadic tears. Against all reason, right before he would have collided with MOMO, Mizrahi's body seemed to pass right through her, disappearing entirely into thin air. She stared at her hands for a moment, her whole body shaking.  
  
I couldn't move. It was as if I was feeling the pain that she felt as my own. She clutched her hands close to her chest, and I felt my own hand gravitate toward my chest as hers had. Her voice, pitiful, reached my ears.  
  
"Da...ddy..." she stuttered, tears pouring down her face. As if transfixed, Jr. began walking to her. Before he could reach her, however, she threw her face toward the sky in lament. "DADDY!!" Jr. stopped halfway on his path to her.  
  
"MOMO," he whispered. I had seen that look on the faces of many men. He cared deeply for MOMO, judging by the sadness etched on his features. My strength came back to me, and I finished Jr.'s walk to MOMO, coming up next to her.  
  
"All this before me," I said in a quiet tone, "Is this really Miltia from 14 years ago?" I already knew the answer, but no response would ever come. Strange phenomena seemed mundane in this place. The ground beneath my feet shook violently, and I heard MOMO cry out. Her small hands latched onto mine as she tried not to fall. She looked up at me, her face tear-streaked, with fear. I returned the glance. Without another warning, the ground beneath us and the city around us completely disappeared. An unsettling feeling came to my stomach, and we plummeted from where we had been standing only moments ago on solid ground.  
  
The last thing I remembered was MOMO's terrified scream and her hands still clutching mine.  
  
Quoting Jr., "What the hell was going on?" 


	9. Accept My Memories?

"You must accept," a strange voice rang in my head, "the entirety of your memories." The voice was a woman's, or even a girl's. I did not recognize who it could have belonged to, though. But there was a lingering familiarity in her tone that alarmed me. But, seemingly as soon as I heard the strange voice, I felt consciousness slipping back upon me. Reluctantly, I left the blackness of my subconscious and slowly came aware of my new surroundings. The soft blades of what could only be grass played in the wind around me, and my back was up against the rough bark of a tree. I forced my eyes open, and they beheld the silent scene of a verdant canopy, dull sunlight filtering lazily through the round leaves. Dust motes dabbled in the warm rays of light, and a light, fragrant breeze floated by whimsically. The damp smell of rain filled me, as if a brief storm had recently passed by. But it was neither of these things that attracted my attention.  
  
MOMO was crying.  
  
Each new sob brought an ache to my heart. Her knees curled under her, in an almost fetal position. As if trying to stem the flow of wet tears down her face, her hands were at her eyes. But even they could not hold back the emotions within her, spilling down her cheeks and splashing upon the green grass below her. I wished with every atom within me that I could help her. Every single part of me wanted only to take those tears and make them gone. If only I could help her. But I couldn't. I knew this. As hard as I could have tried, I could not take away the fact that she had seen her father die before her very eyes. I knew what she felt.  
  
She must have felt that there could have been a way she could have saved him. If only she would have done one thing -the tiniest thing- her father might be standing with her. It was exactly what I felt. My step-son. I should have been able to do something- anything. But I couldn't. MOMO couldn't avert the death of Joachim Mizrahi any more than I could avert the death of my step-son. Mine in every way but blood.   
  
The shifting of grass told me that Jr. was alert as well. I turned my eyes slightly to see him, slowly approaching the weeping form of MOMO. He raised his hand, tentatively, and set it comfortingly on MOMO's shoulder. His fingers squeezed her shoulder so gently, and I heard a break in her lamentation.  
  
"Jr.," her voice broke, and her tears continued. Jr. tried his best to smile for her, to try to pull the sadness from her face. I thought it a shame that she had not seen such a smile, for she surely would have returned it, as sad as it would have been. I pushed myself to my feet, and I realized that my whole body ached, as if I had suffered from a hard fall. As MOMO's sobs slowed, maybe by the comfort that Jr. bestowed upon her, I cracked all the joints in my fingers and the wrist of my right hand. As I did so, I heard more disturbing of the grass behind me.   
  
Quickly, I spun around, putting myself between the approaching figures and Jr. and MOMO. Whatever it was, it was taking its time. Perhaps it hadn't even noticed our presence yet? Slowly, the figures came into view, and I was astonished.  
  
Shion, Allen and chaos.  
  
I felt relief spread through me like a warm drink on a cold night. Thank God they were alright. Shion's bright green eyes focused past us, forward on the apparent path they seemed to be walking, then she must have seen us out of the corner of her eye, for she started violently.  
  
"Jr.?!" she cried, spotting his vibrant red hair first and foremost, "How did you all get here...?" Jr. glanced at MOMO, as if making sure that she was alright, then began walking toward Shion.  
  
"Beats me," he told her truthfully. I knew we had speculations, but we could not be sure about anything in this place. "As soon as you dived, everything went all hazy, and the next thing I knew, we were here. After that, there were all sorts of visions..." He trailed off, that same darkness coming to his eyes I had seen when the U.R.T.V. had passed us.   
  
"Did we all get pulled into the Chief's Encephalon dive?" Allen asked, as if he'd had the same assumption that I'd had. about the whole affair. Shion gave him and incredulous look.  
  
"That's impossible," she retorted, "None of you were connected."  
  
"If KOS-MOS' oscillation pulse caused a counter-current to flow through the Dive Unit, it's not inconceivable. The ones we use are non-contact types, after all." Allen explained, more to Shion than us, I suspected, for I only caught bits and pieces of the phrases.  
  
"Even if that were the case," Shion mused, "the Simple Dive Unit couldn't handle that great a load. There would have to be some other, external force..." She looked to her feet, as if remembering something. As if sensing a lull in the conversation, chaos inserted himself into it.  
  
"Regardless of how we got here, this is KOS-MOS' mainframe. Our memories found a common resonance within her, and resulted in the creation of this world..." chaos paused. "That's what it feels like to me," he added as an afterthought. Allen, his face a jumbled mess of confusion, tried to clarify what chaos had just said.  
  
"But, I don't remember ever being in a place like this," he said, a hint of a groan in his voice. As before, chaos seemed to know more than he let on.  
  
"I wonder if perhaps memories - in other words, events that occurred in the past - become stronger, more selective, and gain a higher priority when they resonate with others that share identical axes in time and space." I could only silently agree with him on this point, remembering that both Jr., MOMO and I had some roots in Miltia. "If you think about it in those terms, it isn't quite so odd that both my memories and those of Allen are not reflected here." chaos finished, and I nodded.  
  
"So," I started, "what you're saying is this world is constantly changing based on the experiences people share in time and space?" chaos nodded, a smile forming on his face.  
  
"A world made up of our past, as glimpsed through the mind of KOS- MOS..." Jr. murmured. MOMO, who had been listening but not intervening the whole conversation, decided to speak.  
  
"So...it's all an illusion...?" Her voice, still weary from crying, seemed to hold something like the glimmer of hope. Perhaps she wondered if the whole ordeal with her father was nothing but a simple mirage of sorts. Shion shook her head sadly.  
  
"There's no difference between illusion and reality to the person experiencing it. This is...no illusion..." It sounded to me like Shion had also experienced something nerve-wracking in this place, or at least something to make her face blanch and her eyebrows arch upward in sorrow. She sighed loudly, and looked down the path, the way she had been headed before she found us. "So that's hat she meant," she whispered to herself.  
  
Without even a plan, we all seemed to think heading down the path and toward the crumbling building at its end would be the best course of action. As we neared the building, we found it to be a sort of church, built low to the ground and with a dark, crumbling stone. I was reminded instantly of the asteroid Pleroma, where I had seen a shrine uncannily like the church I saw now. Or perhaps I was just associating the two at random. Whether I did or not, the thought of Pleroma brought on thoughts of MOMO, who I found to be walking not far behind me. I deliberately slowed my pace until I was walking in step with her. It was painful to see her beautiful eyes swollen with tears.  
  
"MOMO," I said in a low whisper. She looked up, seemingly surprised, as if she hadn't noticed me. I realized then that I did not know what to say to her. I didn't know whether to try to comfort her, or to ask whether she was feeling better. I had no idea what to tell her. Words failed me, and I searched frantically for anything to fill the silence which now had instated itself. Finally, the only words I could form spilled from my mouth. "I'm sorry."  
  
I didn't know if I was sorry for her loss or sorry that I couldn't comfort her. It could even be that I was sorry that I couldn't think of anything better to say to her. But she must have taken her own meaning, for she nodded.  
  
"It's okay, Ziggy," she told me, though her eyes told the truth. She was still crying inside. As a seemingly useless gesture of consolation, I put my arm around her shoulders. She gazed up, her red, tear-stained eyes searching mine. Then, finally, a smile tugged minutely at the corners of her mouth. That was all I needed. All I needed was her smile, and it was as if all the troubles of the world were as nothing.   
  
Shion was the first to suggest we go into the church. Upon examination, I found that there was no signs that the building would collapse, so I told her that it would be safe to enter. She pushed the wooden door open, and all of us, one by one, made our way into the dark church. There were no lights inside. Only sunlight pouring through the sieve-like stained glass windows shed any light on the innards of the building. Hazy motes of dust drifted through the light, which spilled on the floor in a multi-colored puddle. The first thing I noticed that, down the isle lined by old wooden pews, was a woman. She was knelt before the altar, her head bowed in silent prayer. Her shock white hair stood out against her bleak and dismal surroundings.  
  
"Someone's here," Allen said quietly. "Those clothes...is she a Realian?"  
  
"Yes," MOMO said from beside me. "She definitely seems to be a Realian, but...I also sense something different..." As MOMO said this, the woman got to her feet and turned to face us. On her face was a warm, welcoming smile that seemed to beckon us to come further into the innards of the dark church.   
  
"Is this based on one of our memories, too, Chief?" Allen asked Shion. When she made no answer, he turned from the strange woman to his superior. "...Chief?" Shion's eyes never left the woman.   
  
Seeing that she was now aware of us, I stepped forward, posing the question we had been discussing.  
  
"Are you a Realian?" I asked as politely as I could. The woman nodded, her golden eyes never leaving Shion's form.  
  
"Yes," she told us. "My name is Febronia. I came to take care of this church because I longed for a place where Realians could find peace." As if the name struck a chord, Shion suddenly spoke again.  
  
"Febronia..." Shion muttered.  
  
"Do you know her?" Jr. asked, trying not to take his eyes from Febronia. Shion nodded slowly.  
  
"I...I know you... I...know...you...! But...no... I don't want to remember.." She paused, throwing her hands to her face in horror. "It's...it's..."  
  
Febronia only smiled. In the dim light of the church and the sudden change in Shion's demeanor, Febronia's smile took on a somewhat sinister quality.  
  
"Follow me, Shion," Febronia called, standing next to an old wooden door. Shion reluctantly followed the Realian woman with her eyes. A voice melted through the dense air then. This time, it was a voice I knew. It was the same strange voice I had heard before. Only this time, I could see its owner.  
  
"The instant you open that door," the small girl with long auburn hair said in her quiet tone, "you will come face to face with yourselves. It will be an experience full of sorrow and pain...But it is, both to you and to us, a very, very important experience." She seemed to be looking at all of us at once, and it was not comfort I felt, but a small twinge of fear. Was she saying this to me? Who was she speaking to? How could she know about my memories? Accept my memories... That's what she had said to me before.  
  
All I knew was that it was easier said than done.  
  
Shion, timid though she seemed, bravely approached the door. What lay beyond, none of us knew, save for the mysterious girl who had spoken to me once. Memories. I would be only too happy to be rid of those memories for good.  
  
"You must accept the entirety of your memories," the same voice came inside my head.  
  
Accept my memories?  
  
What did she mean?  
  
It was at that moment that Shion decided to open the door. 


	10. Face Their Own Demons

A bright flash of lightning illuminated the long hallway in front of us. I saw Shion stiffen in fear as a long rumble of thunder followed close after. But her eyes were resolute, and she pulled herself together.  
  
"This," Allen started, his face pulling back in disgust, "is inside the Chief's soul?" I couldn't help but think the same. The hallway was cold and desolate, very much unlike the Shion I was acquainted with. But, then again, there was very likely much more to this woman than I was aware of, or possibly ever be aware of. I saw her take a deep breath, then she stepped into the dark. Slowly, we all followed her. I grimaced at the scene around me. The walls were splattered with a viscous liquid that could only be blood. It lay in pools on the floor and was even flecked on the ceiling. I felt someone press up against my side, and I looked to see MOMO edging closer to me, her eyes locked on the gory sight before her. Gently, I moved to screen the sight from her sight by placing myself between the dark pools of blood and her bright golden eyes. Suddenly, Shion stopped. Her eyes were glued on the door she now stood in front of.  
  
"This is..." she whispered, barely audible. The small girl with auburn hair stood next to Shion, her tone dull but with a profound sense of wisdom.  
  
"The Acute Neurosis Treatment Facility," the girl said quietly. "A place you know well." Shion nodded, ever so slightly inclining her head.  
  
"The room... where Mom was hospitalized..."   
  
"Yes," the girl murmured, hardly above a whisper. "A place where painful, sorrowful memories linger. I wonder..." She turned to look at Shion, her haunting eyes focusing on the young woman's face. "Can you face them...?" With that ominous note, the door to the room slid open, unprovoked. The area inside was a dark abyss, a faint hissing sound emanating from inside. MOMO involuntarily recoiled into me, and I felt my hand latch itself around her. Another bright lightning bolt engulfed the room in temporary light. I saw bodies littering the floor, their faces upturned and agape in the moments of fright before their deaths. Both MOMO and Shion gasped. The latter's eyes were focused on the figure lying in the singular bed in the room, turned away from us. She was either sleeping or...  
  
I was jarred violently from my thoughts as the next flash of lightning shed light on a monstrosity. A hideous form, wavering, translucent, hobbled next to the woman's bed. Its mouth agape in a silent howl, the creature ambled toward the center of the large room. The slight hiss grew louder, and, from the shadows, there emerged more of these foul things. MOMO could take the sight no longer, and closed her eyes tightly, huddling close to me. I, on the other hand, could not take my eyes away from the macabre sight before me. The creatures, their invidious claws outstretched, attacked one another. A sickening sound permeated the air as the creatures began to meld together, like some sculptor's mold come to life. My brow furrowed and my mouth turn down in a disgusted frown. Shion's eyes never left the form, though she began to shake slightly.   
  
It was then that I noticed Jr. His pupils were contracted in fear as he stared at the monster before us. Though, his eyes were clouded, as if he were not seeing what we were witnessing. But it was the most fear I had ever seen in his eyes. Slowly, he began to back away from whatever he may have been seeing, and his back met that of Shion. When this physical contact occurred, I could see Jr. snap back to real life almost instantly.  
  
"Chief! Jr.! What's wrong with you two?! Hey! Chief?!" Allen said. Then, as if he as noticing it for the first time, his eyes locked onto the now slightly glowing form of the monsters. "Wha... What is... THAT?"  
  
The formerly shifting mass was now taking on a solid form, though still wavering slightly. It looked to be some form of Gnosis, but there was no way I could be sure. The somber, almost sad-looking girl stepped up between Shion and Jr., her dark eyes never once leaving the Gnosis.  
  
"You know what you must do," she whispered. "That is not the question I ask. Are you able to," she paused to look at both of them, "go through the pain for what it is you desire? You must prove now that you are ready, willing. Are you ready?" Shion looked at Jr., and his eyes caught with hers. A barely discernable head nod was exchanged between them, and that was all they needed. Without warning, the two of them leapt into the fray, taking on the hulking form of the Gnosis. Neither chaos, Allen, nor the little girl made any move to aid them. I took a step forward, ready to fight, ready to help, but I felt a sharp tug on my arm. Surprised, I turned to see MOMO, her eyes threatening to shed tears once more, staring up at my face, shaking her head.  
  
"Don't," she said, almost fiercely. "Don't go, Ziggy." The thoughts of confusion must have showed on my face, for more tears started forming in her eyes. "Don't go after them." This time, she was pleading. "Please," her voice softened. I knelt next to her, my back to where Shion and Jr. were now engaged in fierce battle.  
  
"Why... Why don't you want me to help them?" I asked.   
  
"I want you to," MOMO said, her eyes swollen with tears she wouldn't let fall. "But you can't! You just can't, Ziggy!" I couldn't find the words to respond to what she had said. All I could do was stare, open-mouthed. What would have been a silence was filled with the terrifying sound of gunshot from Jr. MOMO searched my face for any sign of recognition, and when she found none, her face clouded. Luckily, chaos was nearby, and, his eyes fixed on the battle, he explained.  
  
"They have to fight their own demons," he said in a low voice. Both of shifted our gazes to the young man, who looked gravely onto the battle. After a moment, we both looked back to each other. I understood then, and I nodded to show MOMO that I did. Without warning, she threw her arms around my neck in a tight embrace. I could feel her crying against me, her quiet sobs wracking close to my body. Slowly, almost apprehensively, I returned her embrace. She said something then, so quietly that I could only barely make out what she was saying. It was almost as if she hadn't intended for me to hear.  
  
"Don't leave me, Ziggy," she wept. I felt my embrace on her tighten instinctively.  
  
"I won't," I reassured her in a soft tone, "I promise."  
  
It was as if everything around us did not matter any longer. It was just us. Nothing else but a Realian and a cyborg. I pulled her close to me, feeling the realness of her, relishing in the fact that she was here with me. Then I paused. Slowly I became aware that the creature in my hands was not MOMO or even a Realian at all. I stiffened, and, carefully, I pulled the small form away from my chest. My heart skipped a beat. His golden-hued eyes stared at mine, his dark curly hair under his stocking cap sticking out in places. This was not MOMO.  
  
"Hi, Dad!" It said to me, a warm smile breaking over his face.   
  
This was not even my stepson. This was...  
  
I separated myself from the child, breathing heavily. This was a trick. The real world was suddenly throw back into my realm of vision. Where the child had sat, MOMO now sat in its place. Her face was contorted in confusion and pain. When I had thrown the imposter off of my person, I must have done so to MOMO. I felt awful then. I instantly tried to rectify my mistake.  
  
"MOMO, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"  
  
"Ziggy," she interrupted me. I was aware that chaos and Allen were now torn between watching Shion and Jr.'s battle and what was now occurring between MOMO and myself. "Are you... okay?" I was aware that my chest was still rising and falling rapidly as I breathed heavily, scared by the short vision. Almost instantly, I knew who had caused it. Vehemently, I turned my eyes to the small girl with bright orange hair in the white dress. She seemed to be watching Shion's progress, but I saw that she was looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. I glared at her. How dare she?  
  
"Yes," I told MOMO, my eyes returning to her sad form. "I'm fine now. I just thought..." I tried to find the right words. "Thought I saw something that I didn't." She stared at me, as if she were inclined to disbelieve. I exhaled loudly, expecting her not to understand what I had experienced. I then heard something akin to an explosion behind me, and I turned quickly, shoving myself from the ground in a flash. I stood, ready to take on anything. But there was nothing that needed taking care of. Shion and Jr. both stood where the monster had been, beaten, bruised and bloody. A thin line of blood trailed from the edge of Shion's mouth, and Jr.'s right eye was swollen. It was Shion that looked up from the destruction first, and a tired smile found its way onto her lips, which were coated in her own blood. Jr., on the other hand, slumped to the floor, his guns dangling loose in his hands. His breathing was labored, and he looked like he was about to be sick.  
  
MOMO's golden eyes levitated up to catch my gaze. It was as if she was asking permission to go to him. I could feel my insides fighting with each other. I didn't wish Jr. any harm, but... Whenever he was close to MOMO... Whenever he spoke kind words to her... When he touched her shoulder back in the grove... I had an inexplicable feeling that I wanted nothing more than to extricate him forcibly from her. But the look in her eyes then persuaded me. Against my wishes, I nodded. MOMO broke from my side and dashed to where Jr. sat exhausted on the floor. Just as she was about to reach him, everything went black.  
  
There was nothing but inky blackness surrounding me. I panicked. I reached out in the dark, trying to find MOMO. But I could not find her. Then, from the darkness, came the screams of Shion and Jr. My heart went into my throat. Good Lord... What in the name of Hell was going on? Before I could wonder any longer, it was light again. I shielded my eyes from the sudden change in lighting. I was relieved to see everyone was still together... Including that auburn-haired girl.   
  
Her gaze shifted from Shion, to Jr., to MOMO... then to me. She fixed her strange eyes on me, and I just glared back. I did not know if what she was doing was for good or ill, but I could not forgive her for such a trick. To make me think my boy was in my arms, making me toss MOMO away like a rag doll... That girl looked like an angel, but the aura that surrounded her brought me nothing but fear and distrust.  
  
I had no idea what to think of her... And we were at her mercy... 


	11. To Change the Course of the Future

I was surrounded by light. I had to shield my eyes at first, and they slowly adjusted to the sudden brightness. As far as I could tell, I was outside, and the bright sunlight shone down on me. Though, now, I knew that not everything was as it seemed in this place... What did Shion call it? KOS-MOS' Encephalon? Whatever it was, I knew I had to be on constant-  
  
I was interrupted by the bright laughter of children. I was baffled for moments on end, then turned my head slightly, and I suddenly was aware of a huge verdant tree. At its base sat a woman who looked uncannily like the Realian Febronia we had just encountered. Around the tree ran two small Realian children, who had the same features as Febronia as well. They were laughing and playing, completely oblivious that a large group of people had instantaneously appeared. In fact, they seemed to notice nothing but the three of them. I was aware that Febronia was with us, and she stood near Shion and the red-haired girl. A pained look came to her golden eyes, and she turned to Shion.  
  
"I am sorry, Shion... I know it was hard for you... But..." She broke off, looking like she was close to tears. Shion looked from Febronia to the three Realians under the tree.  
  
"There are," she started, looking back to Febronia, "two of you...?" A faint smile grew over the latter's features. Considering all the strange events, I did not find the smile comforting.  
  
"The woman sitting over there isn't me." This seemed to take Shion aback, and she wasn't the only one. "It's just an image created for the girls. An illusion. This is their world..." She trailed off to look at the diminutive Realians, cavorting happily. "Created solely for Cecily and Cathe. I am using KOS-MOS' Encephalon construction abilities to show it to all of you." Allen nearly laughed, smiling.  
  
"But...they seem to be so happy..."  
  
"Would you say that... ...if you were to see this?" Febronia asked the man. Before our eyes, the world changed. The once lively and beautiful tree withered and died instantly. The formerly clear blue sky was now cloudy and gray, grumbling with ever-present thunder. A dead body now took the place of Febronia's look-alike. Allen gasped loudly, and I felt MOMO moving involuntarily away from the sudden and frightening change in scenery. I took her gently by the shoulder. The last thing I wanted to happen was for MOMO to dart from the group and become lost in this strange world. And she stayed; though I could feel her hand cutting into mine painfully. I never said a word.  
  
"This is just an illusion that traps them here," Febronia told us, her eyes never leaving the children, who were still playing and laughing in their harsh environment. It gave the place an even more eerie feel. "A binding spell created by mankind to control the Zohar. But, as far as they know, this world is reality. I want you," she said, turning to Shion again, "to release my sisters... Please, for the future of the Realians as well."  
  
"The future of the Realians?" Shion asked. It seemed as if she were suddenly about to get much more than she bargained for.  
  
"Not just for their future," the small red-head cut in, and every head turned to her. "but for the future of humans, non- humans, and all matter of living consciousness. Feb and I can only exist in this world of consciousness. We can only come into contact with the real world for a short time. That is why I called for all of you... So that the future may be changed." These words hung on me like a sudden lead weight.   
  
"Change the future?" Shion asked, still not quite understanding the undertaking she was about to receive.  
  
"Look," the girl said, and as she tuned to the girls, the vision changed again suddenly, and we were floating amongst the inky blackness of space and the tiny white stars. Before us lay a beautiful planet. I knew as soon as I saw it, that it was Miltia. I had only seen it from space once, but that had been all the time I had needed. It sat suspended in space like a giant ball, staring at me, willing me to come closer, to remember. I pushed away the thought, still holding tightly to MOMO's hand.  
  
"Miltia," Shion muttered. I stared at her. Did that mean that she, too, had ties to that damned planet? As we stared at the planet, we had failed to notice that an object was approaching from behind at incredible velocities. My sensors picked it up as it came near, and I swiveled around to see what it was. As I turned, so did MOMO, followed by the entire group.   
  
"That's... KOS-MOS!" Shion shouted. As loud as her voice was, it seemed that it would not affect KOS-MOS' trajectory. Her cold, red eyes stared past us right to the planet Miltia. Slowly, I saw her boosters' back thrust, and she adjusted herself to face the planet dead on. The apparatus she had bedecked herself with looked ominously like the wings of some demon. She stared blankly down at the surface of the planet. A gasp from Shion alerted me to what KOS-MOS' dead eyes had been locked onto. The surface of Miltia was slowly being consumed by what looked like a concentration of red energy. It focused itself into one large spot on the planet's surface, and then the whole planet shook as the energy leapt from Miltia in an immense energy beam. KOS-MOS, her face deadpan, lifted her arm slowly, and a seemingly electrical-type charge was built up in huge amounts. It built up until it was released from her body in another great beam of energy. The two beams moved for each other rapidly, and I knew what was about to happen.  
  
I leaned down and shielded MOMO from the blast that occurred as the two beams collided with one another. I could feel her gripping my shirt tightly. We were engulfed in a blinding flash of light, and in another moment, it was gone. Not just the light, but the planet, KOS-MOS... Everything. Shion threw her hands over her mouth, suppressing a scream. The red-head seemed unmoved by any of the events, and I could not help the anger from rising from within me. As MOMO slowly released me from her death grip, I could see her eyes searching for any sign of KOS-MOS. There was none. She looked to me, eyes shimmering with oncoming tears, and I shook my head sadly. Her hand remained firmly attached to mine.  
  
"That stream of energy," the mysterious girl said, "is the consciousness known as U-DO." Jr. whirled around, staring at her with a seriousness I had not known him to possess.  
  
"What?" He nearly yelled. "U-DO?!"  
  
"U-DO was the source of the space-time anomaly that engulfed Miltia 14 years ago. What you just saw was a vision of the future, where U-DO encounters KOS-MOS in the form in which she was meant to be." I took my eyes from the girl for one minute, if only to see Shion's reaction to what she had to say. I saw no change on her face, but I could see a faint glimmer of fear deep in her eyes. "U-DO will awaken soon. He feeds upon the consciousness of those who intend to awaken him, as well as those who wish to seek him."   
  
"It's gonna wake up... Soon?" Jr. asked. There was a fierceness about him, almost like a deep red aura. He was incensed, to the point of his eyes burning with both anger and fear. I saw it in him as I had felt it in myself once. I feared for him then, that he was like I had been so long ago. The red-head turned to face all of us, again seeming to look everywhere at once with her strange eyes.  
  
"The future you just saw is but one of an infinite set of potential phenomena. But that does not mean that the future is already set. Even the smallest of waves can spread throughout the whole. Phenomena change with every moment, just like a drifting wave." Shion rounded on her, seeming to be more excited and tense, rather than angered as Jr. had been.   
  
"Are you saying...that we're that wave?"   
  
That statement alone was enough to tell me that this was indeed more than I expected to handle when I accepted the mission to emancipate MOMO. It was far deeper than I had realized then, but perhaps it had all been orchestrated specifically to come to this end. Perhaps we all were pieces of the puzzle this girl had been trying to piece together for so long. I was a part of a wave that was to change the course of the future.   
  
"Yet, before it all begins, I wanted you to," she turned her eyes to me, almost threateningly, it seemed to me, "face your pasts. But I see you are not ready yet. I am sorry." My breath caught in my throat. I knew she was talking to me. She could very well have been talking about someone else, but I knew that part of her statement was for me. Because I had failed to recognize my past, however painful it was, I had somehow failed her plan. How could she possibly know how I felt? Anger seethed and welled inside me, but I swallowed it back, unwilling to let it escape and permeate.  
  
"But why us?" Shion asked, determined to get answers that the girl seemed hesitant to give. She blinked slowly a few times, as if explaining that Shion already knew the answer, then spoke softly.  
  
"Shion...you were once touched by a Gnosis." Shion's gasp echoed in the deepness of space. Every head turned to her. "Despite that, you remain unchanged, the same as before. That is why."  
  
"That's why?"  
  
"There will be a time when I can discuss why. If you go back to Miltia... The place where it all began. Then you will see." Febronia approached the red-head while she was speaking, then they both faced us. Like water over sand, they washed away into nothingness. They were gone before I could blink.  
  
"Wait!" Shion called. But it was too late. They were gone, leaving us in darkness. All this time, I had nearly forgotten that MOMO clung onto my hand. I was suddenly aware of it again, as circulation to my fingers was suddenly cut off. I nearly jumped, and MOMO loosened her grip, muttering a quick, "Sorry."   
  
"Don't apologize," I whispered back. This was all strange and confusing to me, who had lived for about 100 years... What would it be like from MOMO's point of view? Shion motioned for us to follow her, as she seemed to have discovered something. If it was a way out of this place, I was more than happy to be able to use it. As strange as it would have seemed if we were not in KOS-MOS Encephalon, a door in the middle of space was actually quite inviting. We stepped through, MOMO and me going through the door last, and gazed up at our new surroundings.  
  
It was dank and musty, not unlike the church we had discovered Febronia in. We all stepped around furtively, as if unsure as what to do. But not Shion. She stepped beyond everyone else and moved to where we now saw KOS-MOS to be tied to a slab of rock. It was grotesque and morbid, and I tried not to stare. MOMO seemed enraptured, possibly so she could recognize that it was not actually KOS-MOS we had seen before. Shion approached KOS-MOS' limp form as she dangled from the rock by wires like a puppet. Slowly, Shion raised her hand in front of her.  
  
"Ye shall be as gods..." She muttered under her breath. Without raising her head, we heard the voice of KOS-MOS around us, as if she were everywhere at once.  
  
"Disarming subconscious domain protection."  
  
A soft white light, very much unlike the light that had come from the collision of U-Do and KOS-MOS' energy, surrounded us. I closed my eyes, but the light did not dim. I never felt MOMO's hand leave mine. There was a small jolt, and the light began to subside. I opened my eyes once more, and I found myself to be back on the Elsa. Thank God, it was the Elsa. It was done. I felt myself exhale loudly, and MOMO's head inclined to search my face, and I actually allowed the corners of my mouth to lift up in a smile. It was over.  
  
With a hiss, KOS-MOS' module opened revealing the android as she sat up, staring at Shion. The Vector employee removed the red visor from her eyes. Her eyes met those of KOS-MOS, who blinked blankly. A smile fell over Shion's mouth as she formed what seemed to be very familiar words.  
  
"Good morning, KOS-MOS."  
  
"Good morning, Shion," KOS-MOS replied.   
  
A long silence ensued, as if no one knew what to say. It was chaos that decided to speak up, and his statement seemed to snap everyone out of a daze.  
  
"Well, looks like we all managed to make it back," he said gleefully. Allen nearly jumped at the sound of his voice, then turned to Shion in a quick movement. He moved his mouth without making any sound for at least three seconds, then leapt to Shion's side.  
  
"Chief!" He called with unbridled joy. He threw his arms around her and embraced her tightly. "I'm so relieved you're okay!" Shion's face was one of surprise and lack of any words to form. Finally, after a moment of awkward embrace, Shion formed a word, stuttering.  
  
"A-Allen?" She called nervously. He seemed unwilling to release her, and I heard MOMO's soft giggle from beside me. As soon as Allen registered MOMO's laugher, he let go of Shion quickly, blushing very obviously.  
  
"Er- ah... Sorry, Chief."  
  
A wave of relief washed over everyone present. I could see it spread as everyone released their tension and slumped down into whatever seat they could find. All but KOS-MOS. She stood, staring at Shion. It seemed like no one wanted to move. I especially was one who opted for a short breather. But Shion reminded us that the whole ordeal was to gather information for Captain Lapis Roman. Sighing, I pushed myself out of the seat.  
  
All this about a wave disturbing the course of the future... Was it possible that the strange little girl had been planning it for years or even for centuries? Could it be possible that she knew everything about me because she had been watching, waiting for the opportune time, when all of us, the wave makers, were finally together? What little sense there was in the matter, I gathered it together and plodded up to the bridge, following Shion and KOS-MOS, letting my mind wander. 


	12. Always

AN: Sorry it took so long to get the next chapter up... I like to think of writing as coming in waves... But I'm just weird like that. Anyway, I took some plot liberties with this chapter, so please don't skewer me! That being said... Enjoy!   
  
Although the sound of my heavy, plodding feet pounded against the floor beneath me, I could hear nothing but the dull throbbing of my heart in my chest. All thought was focused inward, and nothing outside of my own head registered in the slightest. Only the pounding in my chest and the thoughts tearing through my mind. That strange girl... Miltia... MOMO and her father... Jr. and Shion facing their demons... And yet, it was still up to me to face my own. I knew she had been speaking to me when she had said that we were not ready to embrace our pasts. She had not been looking singularly at me, but I could feel her eyes -those strange, staring eyes- peering deep into me. Shion had spoken to her as if she were a friend, and yet... I could not bring myself to shake the sense of foreboding and shrouded mystery that she held for me. And those eyes... They seemed to look everywhere at once, even piercing into one's very soul. She could see everything. Even I could not hide my thoughts from her.  
  
"Ziggy," a tiny whisper from outside my train of thought penetrated through the cloud of my consciousness. I blinked a few times, trying to figure out where the voice had come from. Then the faint touch of a cold hand on my human arm brought me from my own realm of thought and into the real world once more.   
  
The delicate, pink bobs of MOMO's hair were the first things I saw. She was beside me, and it was her hand that rested on my arm. We were traveling through the Durandal's halls, on our way to deliver the fruits of our travels to Captain Lapis Roman on the bridge. Shion and Allen led the way, with KOS-MOS in tow. MOMO and I were behind them, with chaos and Jr. making up the rear. The bright eyes of the 100-series Realian stared up at me fixedly. She stared at me for a while, her tiny boots clicking softly on the tiled floor as we continued walking. Slowly, she opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. I stared back. Slowly, her soft eyes grew worried, and she opened her mouth again. I took this opportunity to tweak one of her pigtails gently.  
  
"What's wrong?" I asked her. I felt her grip on my arm increase slightly. And when she spoke, her voice was only a thin whisper, as if she did not want anyone else to hear.  
  
"What did she say to you?" Her face was pale as she gazed expectantly at me. "That girl... Did you hear her inside your head too?" A sharp feeling welled up in my chest, and the dark thoughts about that strange girl resurfaced.  
  
"What did she say to you, MOMO?" There was a tone in my voice that almost scared me. Her grip tightened, and she glanced around herself to make sure that no one else was listening.  
  
"She... She said something about Daddy and-" She cut herself off abruptly with a short whimper. I wanted to say something to calm her, or even something to take her mind from those evil thoughts, but we were interrupted. We had reached the bridge. We all stepped onto the lift, and it started without a noise. As soon as it came to a halt, Captain Lapis Roman spun around from her spot at the helm. Her face was set, but her dark eyes smiled at us. Shion stepped forward, holding out a small device toward the Captain.  
  
"I present to you the memory bank data from the Anti-Gnosis Humanoid Weapon System KP-X, KOS-MOS. Protection Level AAA, with no possibility of alteration." There was pride in her voice. And why should there not have been? All of us had gone through our own personal hells to get those data for her. Though her face showed no change, the aura of Lapis Roman seemed to sigh with relief.  
  
"Memory bank data accepted. Please remain within the Miltian star system until you're cleared of all charges." A cheer went through those assembled. The blue-haired Realians came up to personally congratulate Jr. on his success. I would have normally expected him to feast gladly on the praise of others, but he was unnaturally silent. When they had passed and Lapis Roman left the bridge, he exhaled loudly and leaned against one of the control panels near him, his arms folded neatly across his chest. Mary's flaxen locks bounced as she bounded up toward the red-haired boy.  
  
"Phew, well I am sure glad that escapade's over and done with!" She said with a sigh. Jr. made no response but to look at his shoes. I felt MOMO peek past my arm to see why he had not spoken up. Shelley turned to face Jr., her face unchanged.  
  
"You don't look very happy." She paused, only for a moment. "Did something happen?" Slowly, Jr.'s eyes looked up, paused on MOMO momentarily, then moved to Shelley.  
  
"Huh? Yeah. You could say that..." He trailed off, his focus now off of the woman. "I still can't believe it..." With a whirr and a soft hum, the elevator returned, and I turned to see it carrying two familiar people.   
  
"We've got another friend of yours to release, too," Lapis Roman said, with the first smile I had ever seen her use. Gaignun Kukai stood next to her, straightening his tie. Both of the Godwin sister ran to him, calling his name and embracing him. I would have expected a giggle from the girl at my arm, but she did not stir. Stared at the top of her head worriedly. What that girl aid to her... Did it really hurt her that badly? I was shaken from my thoughts when Jr. addressed Gaignun.  
  
"Hey," he said simply. His senior smirked.  
  
"You've done well."  
  
"Ahh, no big deal... But..." He trailed off, staring into the stars above, "It sure brought back a lot of bad memories..." After another moment of reflection, he turned to Shion. "Hey, Shion... That girl... She called herself Nephilim, right?" Nephilim... So that was her name... At least now I had a name for that enigma of a girl.  
  
"Uhh... Yeah," Shion said slowly. Jr.'s eyes changed suddenly, to a sharper blue.  
  
"You sure?" His tone was grave.  
  
"Yes, but..." She stopped to watch him as the thought seemed to sink in. "What's wrong?" She asked at last. Jr. seemed shaken from his thoughts, and he gave Shion a look of gravity.  
  
"Well... If that girl is somehow connected to what I'm thinking of... Then things are gonna get real busy, real soon..."  
  
I had failed to notice, in my observation of their conversation, that MOMO had left my side. I turned just in time to see her use the elevator to go down to the bottom floor. I felt myself involuntarily move toward where she disappeared, and I stopped myself short. The sudden movement caught the eye of chaos, who was standing nearby. My eyes glanced up to him briefly, and I saw him give an almost unperceivable nod in the direction MOMO had gone. Again, my feet took me without my asking them to. I took the lift down from the bridge without asking leave, and followed MOMO's thermal trail. I tracked her all the way to the Elsa, where I caught a glimpse of her pink hair stealing into the main doorway. I followed. She lit to the cabin that she and Shion had slept in and closed the door behind her.  
  
I must have stood in front of the door for minutes on end. I could hear her inside, sniffling to herself. I was torn. I wanted to enter, to intrude, and to comfort. I wanted to take her pain and keep it to myself. I wanted to curl every worry and every pain into a ball and place it where it could never be found again. Then again... I had told myself long ago that I would never entangle myself in someone's life again. But just the other day, I had made another promise. And this promise was the one I would keep. I raised my hand to the door and rapped at it quietly with my knuckles. There came a soft, low cry as a response. Worry tugged at my heart, and I knocked a bit louder.  
  
"MOMO," I said quietly. Her sniffling stopped short, and I heard her shuffling quickly to the door. But she hesitated at the door. "You don't have to let me in," I assured her. "I just want to know..." I paused, searching for the right words, "if you're all right." There was a choking cry from the other side of the door, and it slid open effortlessly. MOMO's soft face was streaked with tears, and her eyes swam with fresh pain ready to pour over her cheeks. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and the tears spilled from her eyes.  
  
"Ziggy," she choked. Before I could say anything else, she had clamped her arms around my midsection. I had been taken by surprise so many times that day, it was hard for much else to take my breath away. But this had done it. Effortlessly, I scooped her from where she clung and took her into her room. It was dark inside, and none of the lights were on. I left them as they were. I took MOMO to the bunk she slept in and sat at the foot of the bed. I lay down the girl that was shivering in my arms into the folds of the blankets beneath her. Her tears were fresh on her cheeks, and her quiet, hushed sobs escaped through clenched teeth. I pulled a blanket around her and made an involuntary shushing noise. Once she settled down and her cries quieted, I spoke in as quiet a voice as possible.  
  
"What did she say to you?" I asked, feeling my own voice resonate in the darkness. There was silence, and then a sharp intake of breath.  
  
"Sh-she told me I-I-I had to accept what D-Daddy was, and th-that he did b-b-bad things," MOMO said, stuttering on account of her tears. In the dark, I heard the blankets rustle as she moved and curled herself up next to me at the foot of her bed. Before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth and spoke.  
  
"She spoke to me of the past, and how I mustn't keep locking it away."  
  
I realized I had let it slip all too late. But it didn't seem to effect her. Though her breathing calmed and her tears stopped. I felt her yawn widely against me.  
  
"Do you think that what she said was true? That we can change the future... And KOS-MOS?"  
  
"I don't know, MOMO," I told her honestly. We didn't speak then for a long time, but just being there, knowing she was safe, feeling her slow breathing as she lay curled next to me, was enough. The darkness closed in around us, and it was only her I saw. She was all that mattered. I shifted my weight and moved of the foot of the bed. "You need your rest. It's been a long day." I turned to leave, but her small voice called out as I stood in the doorway.  
  
"Ziggy?"  
  
"Hm?" I asked, turning slightly.  
  
"What do you want to keep locked away?"  
  
It was a simple question, but, right now, there were no simple answers. I tried to form some words -any words- to explain... But I couldn't. Finally, I shook my head.  
  
"You... You should get some rest," I repeated. The door slid shut behind me, and I felt as if a heavy weight was lying on my chest. I tried to shake off the feeling, but it would not leave. I gave up quickly, and trudged out of the Elsa and back to the Durandal. Every moment, I checked back to find MOMO's thermal scan. And every time, she was where I had left her.  
  
If I believed that wishes would be granted, I would have wished then and there that the statement would always be true... That MOMO would always be there, always where I left her... Always. 


	13. Eye of the Storm

Get out of my head...  
  
"Dad, come play ball with me! It's so nice outside!"  
  
Get out of my head...  
  
"Aw, I don't wanna go to school. Can't I come with you today?"  
  
You're not supposed to be here. Why are you in my head?  
  
"You're the best, Dad!"  
  
No, stop it!  
  
"Get out of my head!" I shouted as my eyes flew open. Breathing heavily, I tried to remember where I was. Slowly, it all came back to me as I took in my surroundings. I had put MOMO to sleep last night, and then I had headed down to the room Matthews had lent me. I brought my right hand to my face and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It was almost funny that so much of my body was a machine, but what little human there was left in me still needed sleep. And I still had dreams. More like nightmares...  
  
I sighed slightly, staring up at the ceiling, where the normally bright lights sat dark and lifeless. I sat there for minutes on end, feeling the grains of my nightmare slip through the fingers of my mind like miniscule grains of sand. Even after all these years, my memories haunted me. It was like a bad dream with no end, constantly reminded of the mistakes I made in my former life. I kicked my feet over the edge of the makeshift bed in the center of the room and stepped onto the corrugated metal floor. The sound of metal on metal sounded through the room, but I had learned to not pay it any heed. But then, I thought, the sound must be annoying to my newly acquired friends who weren't used to it yet.   
  
Before I could contemplate on it any further, the northern door slid open, and I was surprised to find the little Realian MOMO staring back at me through glassy golden eyes. They were clear and bright, a thankful respite from the normal red-rimmed eyes I had seen on her face recently. Her cheeks were free of clinging tears, and her lips curled upwards in a friendly smile. I restrained myself from mirroring her emotion, but I approached her form and knelt next to her. As I searched her face for any sign of fret, she giggled.   
  
"I take it that you're feeling better?" I asked, though I could feel the answer before she said it.  
  
"Yes, I'm better. Thank you for asking, Ziggy," she said sweetly. She turned her head slightly, and I saw that the thin frame of chaos was hovering behind MOMO. His tanned face lit up upon my noticing him.   
  
"Good morning, Ziggy!" he said lightly. I stood again, nodding.  
  
"Good morning, chaos," I returned. "Is there a reason why everyone seems to be congregating in front of my door?" Both MOMO and chaos smiled.  
  
"MOMO wanted to visit the Kukai Foundation today," chaos answered, "but she refused to leave without you."  
  
"Is that right?" I asked, staring at the tiny girl by my side.  
  
"Captain Matthews said that he could let chaos off work in an hour or so to take us down to the Foundation. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Her voice was trying to mask her excitement, but I knew that she couldn't hide it for too long.  
  
"Well, I can't let you two go by yourselves," I said, finding an excuse to go with them. I turned to chaos, whose eyes were brimming with joy. "I don't want anyone getting hurt." I didn't allow my emotions to show themselves, but, for some reason, I felt that chaos could see the happiness I was feeling deep in my heart. MOMO cheered and clapped her hands together, and the smile spread like jam over chaos' thin face.   
  
"It's settled then!" chaos told us, looking from me to the shorter MOMO at my side. "If you two just wait for me on the Durandal's bridge, I'll be there to pick you up in about an hour." He glanced around him, then leaned in closer to add, in a whisper, "Maybe earlier if the Captain's in a good mood." MOMO hugged him around the middle, and he set off up to the Elsa's bridge. I took MOMO by the hand, and we left for the Durandal.  
  
We didn't talk while we walked to the bridge. There wasn't any need to. After the short talk we'd had the night before, I think that we may have understood each other a little more. When I looked at her, it was no different from seeing a human girl. She had feelings, and they could be hurt. She had emotions, and they were as frail as any girls' were. She had a heart, and it could be broken. The way her gold eyes had filled with tears upon seeing her father's death was as natural a reaction for her as it was for any other human.  
  
Any, that is, except for me.  
  
Here was a Realian, a machine built to be just like a human. And there I was, a human being built to be just like a machine. In more ways than one, it seemed, she was far more human than I was. And just as I was thinking all this, she looked up at me. I pretended not to notice her until we stepped onto the lift up to the bridge.  
  
"You can tell me what's wrong," she said. It looked like it was role-reversal time again. I had asked her something along the same lines last night, and now she was asking me. I shook my head.  
  
"It's nothing that you should worry yourself over, MOMO," I told her softly. She stared for another moment or so, then turned to face the front of the lift, hugging my arm in hers. The lift bumped to a stop, and we walked out onto the bridge. Mary's face greeted us instantly.  
  
"G'mornin', MOMO! G'mornin', Ziggy," she said in her strange accent. MOMO returned the greeting and I nodded politely. MOMO left my side and dashed up to the helm where Shelley was sitting. I could hear them exchange greetings, and I followed her to Shelley's seat.  
  
"Good morning," I told the woman. She stared up at me with her usual placid expression. But this time, one side of her face was turned up in a slight smile.  
  
"Good morning, Ziggy," Shelley said in her calm voice. MOMO was sitting in the woman's lap, staring out at the Kukai Foundation below us. "What are you two doing up so early?"  
  
"Haven't you heard the old expression," I started with the lightest hint of sarcasm, "that 'the early bird catches the worm'?" Her lavender eyes giggled with light, but her face remained steady.  
  
"You sound like Little Master, spouting quotes from old books," she told me. I harrumphed lightly, taking my eyes to the brightly-lit Kukai Foundation. "Or maybe he sounds like you..." It started innocently enough, but soon her compliment turned foul. "Like an old man." I turned to see that smile in her eyes again, so I decided to have my own try at wit.  
  
"I may be an old man," I said, trying to best her remark, "but you..." I trailed off, finding nothing to beat her. MOMO covered her lips with her fingers to keep her giggled inside of her. Determined not to lose, I struggled to find an adequate comeback. Finally, in a calm voice, I retorted, "I'm surprised that you understood at all where I was coming from with such an old expression." I was trying to lead her into thinking that perhaps I was complimenting her. Then the trap was sprung. "Then again, you are probably just an old maid after all."  
  
MOMO could not contain herself any longer, and she laughed. Shelley's mouth turned down in a frown of disapproval, but her eyes shone with laughter. I nodded, and turned back to face the Foundation.   
  
I lost track of the conversation MOMO was sharing with Shelley, as I tuned out everything around me. Every voice around me, those of MOMO, Shelley, Mary and the 100-series Realians ceased reverberating in my head. Everything was focused on the tiny little world beneath us, surrounding us. By this time, everyone was probably awake, starting their morning routine. Children were getting reading for their education, their parents dressing for work. I could almost see the bright faces of the people as they went about their lives, without the knowledge of the U-TIC Organization resurfacing, the threats that my friends and I had faced in KOS-MOS' Encephalon, and the dangers that we might face in the future. Everyone down there was blissfully unaware of everything happening outside their little world... And I was glad. The less people that were involved in such deadly dealings, the better. Lives didn't need to be wasted like that.  
  
Time passed slowly as we waited for chaos to finish his shift on Captain Matthews' ship. I was thinking of returning to the Elsa to inquire about him, but when I turned to speak to MOMO, a jolt rocked the huge ship. I grabbed onto the consoles around me to keep my balance, and Shelley gripped MOMO. Alarms began ringing throughout the bridge, and the 100-Series Realians began dashing to their posts. MOMO climbed from Shelley's lap and clung to the console next to me. I knew what she was going to say before she said it, just by the frightened look in her eyes.  
  
"I sense that the Gno-" she was cut off as a blue-haired Realian shouted out from the front of the bridge.  
  
"Large-scale gate-out! Repeat, large-scale gate-out! The U.M.N. geodesic structure is being forcibly replaced!" As I heard this shouted, I turned to see that Jr. had stepped off the lift and was running toward the helm. I backed away, giving the boy room.  
  
"The Gnosis?!" Jr. asked, peering out at the Foundation. Outside the protective bubble surrounding the artificial world, I could see the incredible amount of gate-outs. It had to be. I glanced at MOMO, and she nodded fearfully. Jr.'s blue eyes narrowed in malice. MOMO's arm shot out, and she pointed to the space outside the Kukai Foundation where the Federation's ships were still guarding us.   
  
"Jr., the Federation ships!"  
  
Just as she shouted out, great blue beams shot from the wavering forms of the Gnosis and collided with the cruising Federation ships. They never had a chance. One by one, every ship exploded in a shower of flame and shrapnel. I shielded MOMO's eyes from the glare, but she still gasped in horror. As I was turned away from the carnage, I saw Shion, Allen and chaos arrive on the bridge. The normally warm face of chaos was uncharacteristically pale and taut. Shion saw MOMO and myself, and looked as if she were about to say something, when the frenetic voice of a Realian rang out above the warning sirens.  
  
"The Gnosis are closing in! Four minutes to contact with the Foundation!"  
  
"The civilians!" Shelley said, her voice strained. "Start evacuating them immediately!" She turned to Jr, who was now at her side. "If all else fails, we may have to abandon the Foundation. Is that acceptable?" There was an almost infinitesimal pause, then Jr. replied.  
  
"I'll leave it to you. Evacuate all civilians into the Durandal!"  
  
"Acknowledged. I'll make the announcement."  
  
Everyone was silent while the third-in-command announced the evacuation to the Foundation. I could only imagine the feeling of terror on the faces of the children as they were dragged away from their homes, away from the monsters, and to the immense Durandal. In the silence that followed the announcement, Shion stepped forward to say what she had probably been waiting to say.  
  
"Where's KOS-MOS?! If we activate the Hilbert Effect, it could buy us some time for the evacuation!" Just as soon as she had said this, the lift arrived, carrying the blue-haired android. With combination of the celerity of her arrival and the cold, dead stare of her lifeless red eyes, I could not help a chill from crawling up my spine.  
  
"Shion, did you call for me?" KOS-MOS asked, stepping off of the lift.  
  
"KOS-MOS, are you ready?" Shion asked, apparently unalarmed at the metal woman's sudden appearance.  
  
"Yes. I am ready," KOS-MOS responded in her flat voice.  
  
"Reports of Gnosis sighted in colony precinct 32! They've also penetrated precincts 18 and 27!" Everyone whirled around to witness the news that the Realian had reported. Sure enough, I was witnessing multiple Gnosis gate-outs appearing inside the Foundation itself.  
  
"What?!" Jr. shouted.  
  
"The Hilbert Effect!" Shion said, turning to KOS-MOS.   
  
"Affirmative. Activating Hilbert Effect." The visor normally positioned at KOS-MOS' brow lowered to cover her dead eyes. In an instant, we were surrounded by vibrant waves of intense energy. But, luckily, the energy was not on our wavelength, effecting only the otherworldly Gnosis. Before our eyes, the Gnosis materialized on our plane, making them solid to the eye and the blade.   
  
"This should keep them from materializing inside the colony," Shion muttered, as if with pride. I could not blame her, for engineering KOS-MOS was a feat that no one could be ashamed of.  
  
"In any case, we have to hurry up and get everyone onboard," chaos said quickly. "If we don't do something, the Gnosis are going to take over the entire Metropolis."  
  
"I'll help with the evacuation!" MOMO volunteered at once. I should have said "no." I should have forbade her from leaving the Durandal. If I had, that would have been the end of it. But I didn't. I spoke without thinking. My only thoughts were of MOMO, and that I would not let her go against the Gnosis without my protection.  
  
"I'll go as well," I said without thought. Shion stared at the two of us, the Realian and the cyborg, for only a moment, as if she had second thoughts of our volunteering. Then she shook her head and turned to KOS-MOS.  
  
"KOS-MOS... We're counting on you," Shion said.  
  
"I am happy to be of service," KOS-MOS answered mechanically. Shion smiled.  
  
"Good."  
  
As we traveled down the lift again, heading to the shuttle, I gripped MOMO's shoulder lightly. She turned her eyes to me. I saw not the slightest hint of fear on her face. She wasn't afraid.  
  
"Why aren't you afraid?" I asked her. She smiled, as if it was an answer I already knew the answer to.  
  
"Because if I get hurt, I know I have Ziggy to look after me." Her smile widened, and I gripped her shoulder tighter.  
  
"Just stay close to me, MOMO, and I promise you that you won't get hurt," I assured her. She nodded.  
  
"I know," she whispered.  
  
Before us, the shuttle to the Kukai Foundation arrived, and MOMO and I, followed by Shion, KOS-MOS, Jr. and chaos, stepped inside. 


	14. Riots, Rescues & Tears

As soon as our shuttle landed, I could feel it rocking beneath us. I could hear the hands of the citizens pounding on its metal exoskeleton, begging to be let aboard. They shouted, cried, and pleaded for entrance to the Durandal. Anything to get away from the monsters that now haunted the streets of the Kukai Foundation. I understood their logic, but as the shuttle bounced under another rocking heave from the masses of people, I knew there had to be order before someone was killed. I left MOMO at chaos' side, and I threw open the metal sliding doors. Immediately I was accosted by a wave of people. I braced myself against them, and they stopped.  
  
"Stay calm!" I ordered. My division of the police force had not been formed for crowd control and riots, but even fighting terrorists had taught me a thing or two about people in a panic. The first few people in front of me stopped shoving, seeing the cyborg in front of them. Then, next to me, Jr. appeared, and that seemed to calm the crowd a bit.   
  
"Good thinking," Jr. muttered under his breath, his eyes flicking up to me, as I stood braced against the crowd. I nodded, and I began making a path for the others to follow through the solid mass of people.  
  
"Just stay calm," I repeated, looking at the frightened faces before me. I raised my voice in order to be heard. "There's plenty of room left on the shuttle. We are here to help with the evacuations. You're safe here, so there's no need to-" Before I could say 'panic,' a woman screamed near the end of the crowd. Her scream incited everyone to run toward the shuttle in a mad dash. I braced myself again, feeling the bodies of the frightened people bump past me. From behind, I heard a girl shout. I turned.  
  
"Hey!" MOMO called as a large man almost ran into her. Person after person slammed into her and myself, and I reached out to her. In an instant, I had her up on my shoulders, away from the jostling bodies of the terrified citizens. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief and leaned forward onto my head. "Thank you, Ziggy," she told me.  
  
"Are you all right?" I asked. She nodded, then gasped. I saw her finger shoot out to our left.  
  
"Ziggy, there's a little boy over there! He might be hurt!" I didn't need any further coaxing. I made my way through the throngs of people, shoving when necessary. When I reached the boy, I could see that he was no more than six years old, and there was a drop of blood running from his hairline.   
  
"MOMO, you hop down and take care of him, and I'll shield the two of you. Do you have nanospray with you?"  
  
"I think so," MOMO said, climbing down from atop my shoulders. I stood behind the two of them and faced the oncoming crowd. I took the blows of the panicking people, and I could hear MOMO applying the nanospray to the boy's wounds. Then, slowly, the force of the crowd seemed to ebb, and I no longer needed to shield the children. It seemed that the shuttles had been working double-time in order to cart all of the citizens to the Durandal, and most of them had already made it to their destinations. Through the thinning crowd, I could see Shion, chaos, KOS-MOS and Jr. making their way over to us. MOMO stood, signifying she had done all that she could for the boy.  
  
"Is that better?" She asked him. He nodded, then looked to the both of us.  
  
"Thank you," he said, and ran off in the direction of the shuttle. As Shion approached, I saw a smile lighting her face.  
  
"That was brave of you, Ziggy," she said. I nodded, taking my gaze to the ground, unsure of how to respond. chaos opened his mouth to speak, when a haggard man ran up to Jr., his breath shallow. After a few moments of catching his second wind, the man looked pleadingly at the heir to the Kukai Foundation.  
  
"Little Master," he wheezed, in the 27th Sector... There are still people trapped in there. I tried to go back for them, but the fire-" He stopped, coughing dangerously. I quickly scanned for his vital signs, and it seemed that everything was working correctly, save for the smoke in his lungs. I gave the man a look of gravity.  
  
"You should report to the Durandal at once. They have medical assistants standing by."  
  
"I can't just leave all those people," he told me. Had had to admire his bravery, but his health was far more important.  
  
"Don't worry about them," Shion said suddenly. "We're here to help with the evacuation, and we'll do everything we can to help." Her face lit up with an encouraging smile, and the man coughed again.  
  
"There are 13 people still trapped in the 27th Sector. Can you really rescue all of them by yourselves?"  
  
"We can do our best," Jr. assured him. "Now get on the damned shuttle." The man complied instantly. "Come on, you heard the man," Jr. egged us on, heading out of the dock area. As the other trotted off, I knelt next to MOMO.  
  
"MOMO," I began, taking her shoulder in my hand, "it would be safest if you were to stay here. From what the man has said, there are fires in the 27th District. I don't want you to-"  
  
"No, I'm going to help!" MOMO insisted. I stared at her uneasily, then caved.  
  
"Just stay close," I muttered, following the others at a quickened pace. MOMO nodded cheerfully and jogged to keep up. We moved past the denizens of the city that were moving in the opposite direction, making it hard to reach our destination. But we reached the 27th District in apt time, only to look upon a scene of horror.  
  
Fire. There was fire everywhere, from the roofs of the buildings to debris smoldering in the streets. The roar of the blazes filled my sensors, and the acrid smell of smoke permeated the air. I knew that none of us could stand the lung-filling smoke for too long, MOMO least of all. I suggested that we all wear cloth over our mouths and noses, and it was soon agreed upon. It was also agreed upon that no one would return until rescuing every single person unaccounted for. KOS-MOS and Shion went dashing off toward the inn, chaos ran into the bar, whereas Jr. took immediately down the street. MOMO and I followed.  
  
The Gnosis were close. I could hear them roaring, snarling from their hiding places. No doubt feeding on some poor victim. I grabbed MOMO's hand to keep her from falling behind as I increased my pace. Jr. had broken away from the main road and had disappeared into the billowing smoke. I kept MOMO close. I knew where I was headed, guided by the screams of a woman in the darkened air. Then, as the smoke parted before us, I could see her. It was the woman who ran the laundering establishment.   
  
"Ma'am," I called, skidding to a stop next to her. "You have to leave the city. All citizens must evacuate to the Durandal." As she turned to me, I saw tears rolling down her face.  
  
"My boy!" She cried. "My boy is still in there!" Her quaking finger pointed to the burning second floor of her building. "I tried to go in after him, but the door was too hot..." she trailed off, and her eyes glistened with fresh tears. "Oh, God, my boy is in there!" I released MOMO's hand and guided her to stand next to the crying woman.  
  
"Stay here. I'm going in to find the boy," I told her. MOMO's eyebrows furrowed.  
  
"I said that I was going to help you Ziggy. I want to help!" She stared with her round, golden eyes, pleading.   
  
"No," I insisted, "you could be hurt. I don't want to risk it."  
  
"Ziggy, I'm coming with you!" Her voice raised in volume, and now her eyes began to mist over. "I want to help!"   
  
"MOMO-"  
  
From inside the building, I heard a voice crying out as the roar of the flames increased. MOMO's face burned red, but her eyes stared and begged. No, she wasn't begging. She was persisting. I should have said no, but I couldn't. As much as I knew the danger she would be in, I just couldn't hurt her by saying no. Finally, I gave in, and made a short motion for MOMO to follow me. I knew I was making a mistake. I was risking her life, not only my own. I kicked the door open, and it fell to the ground in front of us with a loud clatter. On my right, a window exploded in a shower of glass shards. I shielded MOMO briefly, then flew up the stairs, keeping the Realian girl at my side.  
  
"Help me!" I could hear the boy shouting from inside his room. MOMO's ears perked up as we neared the door, and she flew down the corridor to the left. " MOMO!!" I called after her. She had dashed into a different room. I told her to stay close! What is she was hurt? What about the boy? With a roar of frustration, I smashed the door in front of me with my foot. The boy sat underneath the open window, his face blackened and tear-stained. I stepped in and reached out my hand.  
  
"Come with me! Hurry!" I called. He complied with celerity, and I scooped him up into my arms. We emerged into the hallway, and I looked right and left for MOMO. She was nowhere to be seen. "MOMO!" I shouted. Nothing, "MOMO!" With the sound of a door closing, she galloped down the hallway, a small bundle in her arms.  
  
"I'm okay, Ziggy! We have to get out of here before the fire burns through a support beam!"   
  
"Okay, let's go, MOMO," I said. We were down the stairs and out the door, followed by nothing but the rush of smoke and heat of flames. I shifted the boy's weight to one arm and grabbed the mother with my other hand as we ran past her. There was no time for talk. The fires were burning at an alarming rate, and I only hoped that the others had managed to rescue anyone. When MOMO and I had returned to the spot where we had all split up, I was rewarded with the sight of all the missing citizens along with all of our teammates. I reunited the mother with her son, who was soon covered in kisses. I leaned against a lamp pole and exhaled deeply. What a run.   
  
I saw MOMO approach a man with shoulder-length blonde hair who seemed extremely preoccupied about something. When MOMO tapped him on the back, he spun around with an unnatural quickness.  
  
"What is it little girl? I have very important things to worry about!" The man shouted. MOMO held out the bundle she had been carrying.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mr. King, but isn't this your cat?" A tiny, furry head poked out of the bundle of clothes that MOMO had in her arms. The cat stared at the man and purred. His face lit up with a smile.  
  
"Francois!" He shouted, scooping the cat up in his arms. "Oh, thank you, little girl! Thank you!" He planted kisses on the cat's head, and I grimaced. MOMO sauntered up to me, a grin on her face. I patted one of her pigtails as she approached.  
  
"I heard the cat mewing when we were looking for that little boy. I couldn't just leave him..."  
  
"I understand," I said quietly. "I was just afraid." MOMO's eyes widened.  
  
"Ziggy was afraid of something?" She asked. I nodded.  
  
"I was afraid that I would fail my mission," I said. I had meant that in failing my mission, MOMO would have been injured, or worse, killed. But she didn't seem to take it in the same way that I had meant it. Her face grew dim and sad, her eyes migrating to the ground. When she looked back up, pain struck through my chest. She was going to cry.  
  
"I understand, Ziggy," she told me in a quiet voice. Then she turned on heel and ran to Jr.'s side. Millions of thoughts passed through my head at once, but most of them asked "what." What had I done? What did I say? What was wrong? What could I do? I wanted to go to her, to correct the mistake that I had committed. But the glaring look that blazed from Jr.'s eyes stopped me in my tracks. Then, as the final blow, I saw MOMO's hand move to Jr.'s shoulder as an act of needed consolation. She had chosen Jr. to protect her. I had lost. My shoulders slumped, and I fell back against the lamp pole once more.  
  
I watched as the people we had rescued gave their thanks and moved to the shuttles. The woman and her boy came to thank me, and I told them to think nothing of it. All I wanted to think about was MOMO, and what I had done wrong. I had lost her, and I wanted her back. I wanted her trust, but most of all, I wanted her to be happy. Jr. couldn't possibly make her happy..... Could he?   
  
"I think we should head back as well," chaos said, stretching slightly. Many head nods, and we agreed. And we would have been all too happy to return to the Durandal if it hadn't been for the gargantuan Gnosis standing in our path.  
  
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AN: I know I took a couple of plot liberties with this chapter, but I felt that there needed to be more to the rescue part of the game. So, behold! ... I sure hope there are still people reading this... I fear that I'll only continue this story if people really want me to. Anyway, enjoy the new chapter! 


	15. Battling the Gnosis

A Gnosis stood, blocking the only exit from this part of the city. Its black, lifeless eyes twitched from form to form, deciding whom to pick off first. It was a sickening sight, the body of the Gnosis itself looking like the skeleton of a giant reptile long since extinct. It flexed its sinewy hands, unable to wait until a victim was struggling in its grip. Saliva bubbled in its mouth, which was lined with razor-like incisors. If such a creature was capable of any form of emotion, I could have sworn it would have been smiling a wicked grin. It stared at each of us, silently pitting our strengths against our weaknesses to see which would be the easiest fight. And its pit-like eyes stopped on MOMO... just as I had known they would.  
  
Stamping its right foot, then its left, the form of the Gnosis wavered and flickered, so that its true form could not be recognized. Then, with a sudden solidification, there stood two Gnosis where only the one had been. They were identical, exactly the same. Each stared at us, their prey, with a gleam of delight in those dead eyes. With a flash of what seemed like electricity, a spear appeared in the right claw of each Gnosis. And, in a flash, the fight began.  
  
The leftmost Gnosis immediately began speeding to where MOMO and Jr. were crouched. The rightmost headed directly for Shion. The shrieks of the women and the deafening gunshot from Jr. filled my ears. I was frozen in my spot. I drew a complete blank. I heard the metal form of KOS-MOS open fire on the approaching threat, and rapid fire ensued, splitting the air. Suddenly there came a clicking from Jr.'s gun. His ammo was depleted. My body reacted to the threat automatically as a trained response, and I dashed from my spot.   
  
I whisked past KOS-MOS and Shion, as I had only one target in my sight. The spear of the Gnosis was raised, about to attack and slice the diminutive Jr. in two. MOMO's scream penetrated my thought pattern and I faltered for only a moment before I regained control and extended the blade on my left arm.  
  
The crash and squeal of metal on metal sounded around me, and I felt immense pressure against my metallic arm. I gritted my teeth and planted my feet as sweat beads began forming on my forehead. The spear of the Gnosis had collided with my blade, and they scraped against each other as sparks flew from the clash of metal against metal. I was vaguely aware that Jr. was reloading his gun behind me, most of my body and mind trained on keep the Gnosis at bay. Slowly, my blade began to slip, the thin shaft of the spear gaining no traction. Anticipating the next move, I slashed upwards and to the right with the arm blade. The grip of the Gnosis faltered for only a second, but that was all the time I needed.  
  
I rushed backwards, past Jr. to where MOMO sat on the pavement of the road. Without question, I scooped her up in my arms and ran toward the nearest establishment. I had to keep the Gnosis away from her, no matter the cost. It was my mission to keep her safe, but it was also my own will that had made the promise to myself and to the girl that was now sitting in my arms.  
  
"Ziggy, what are you doing?" She called, obviously worried about the others.  
  
"You have to stay out of sight," I told her. "The Gnosis are targeting those with the least ability to defend themselves. It's not safe with the others."   
  
"I can defend myself," MOMO protested, struggling against my grip.  
  
"I only want to protect you!" I said loudly. MOMO stopped struggling, seeing the redness in my face and neck. Her brows furrowed, remembering the words we had exchanged earlier.  
  
"Only... Only because I'm part of your mission," she said softly, averting her eyes to the ground. I set her down a safe distance from the battle, and stared at her with a stark seriousness. Upon seeing the frightened look on her face, I softened my glare.  
  
"Not only because you are a part of my mission, MOMO, but-" I was cut short as the iron, bony grip of one of the Gnosis shocked through my torso. I opened my mouth to shout in pain, but nothing came. The pain was intense, the fingers of the Gnosis closing in, trying to crush my body in its own hand. My senses dimmed, and my vision blurred, cut off from any oxygen. An invidious grin was set on the Gnosis' face as it held me at its mercy. The Gnosis began stomping back to where the others were battling, leaving MOMO where I had set her, her tiny voice calling out against the roar of the flames.   
  
"Ziggy!" I became aware of her calling to me. Then I saw her running after the Gnosis. I wanted to yell for her not to follow, to stay put and stay safe. But I knew that she wouldn't listen to me, even if I'd had enough air in my lungs to tell her. The pink bobs of her hair flashing in the light from the flames, she pursued, shouting to get my attention. Her determination, the painful gleam in her bright eyes, made my own grip on the skeletal hand of the Gnosis even stronger.  
  
With the strength I had left in my arms, I forced the Gnosis' hand open, breaking the two topmost digits off of its hand entirely. It screeched in pain, its wailing piercing my ears. I tossed the two digits aside, standing on the creature's now upturned palm, and leapt towards its neck. I grabbed onto the spindly creature's spine and lifted myself onto the top of its skull, all the while it tried in vain to knock me askew. I dodged a swipe by one of its claws and breathed air into my lungs. On command, my missile launcher materialized in my left hand and I proceeded to fire round after round into the base of the creature's skull. Smoke billowed around me and the smell of powder and singing flesh filled the air. Finally, the Gnosis tripped over its own two feet and fell to the ground, knocking me from my perch and sprawling me painfully onto the ground.  
  
Tiny, cold hands were pressing into the flesh of my face, trying to force my eyes to open. They did, and they peered into the face of MOMO, which was yielding tears once again. The tension in her face relaxed when I opened my eyes, and she even looked as if she could smile. There was a brief pause, and then she closed her eyes.  
  
"But what, Ziggy?" She asked at last. At first, my train of thought didn't connect what she was saying, and then I remembered that before we had been interrupted by the Gnosis, I had been telling her something. I forced myself to sit up, feeling pain and the gush of warm blood from my right arm. I must have landed on it the hardest during my fall from the Gnosis.  
  
"Not only because you are part of my mission, MOMO, but because I care about what happens to you. Not the mission: just MOMO." I touched her elbow with my metallic left hand, and she shivered ever so slightly, as if in fear.   
  
Before I could contemplate the meaning of her reaction, the Gnosis behind us rose from the asphalt of the road with an air-splitting roar. The spear rose into the air to strike the final blow. Ignoring whatever pain I felt, I leapt towards the sitting MOMO and shoved her from the spear's deadly warpath. The weapon dug into the pavement inches from my feet. It rose again and drove toward my heart. I rolled out of the way, hearing the spear point grind the tiny black pebbles under its metal head. It rose; I dodged, feeling the air displaced by the shaft as it plunged downwards, meeting the ground the smallest distance away from my body. As it fell one last time, I pushed myself to my feet and lashed out with my foot, knocking the spear from its only usable hand. It clattered to the pavement, but as I was distracted by the sound momentarily, the creature lunged.  
  
All the air was forced from my lungs as the huge body of the Gnosis collided with mine. We hit the ground at the same moment, the asphalt splitting as our combined weight severed it forcefully. The Gnosis' neck rose, and its jaws opened with a sickening squelch. As its teeth plunged for my body, my hands lashed out and grabbed the top and bottom jaws separately. Its rank breath consumed the air around us, and wet saliva dripped from its fangs as I tried desperately to keep it from consuming me. My disgust was second only to the pain of keeping the creature at bay. My strength was waning, and the wound in my right arm was opening wider, allowing more blood to flow down my arm. I blinked to keep my vision clear, ignoring the slowly growing pool of blood under me. Just then, I felt my right arm give out and the creature's head dove forward.  
  
With a deafening crack, gunfire exploded around me. Bullets crashed into the body of the Gnosis, causing it to raise its head and bray in pain. The Gnosis, being fired upon at two angles, gave up on trying to devour me and leapt from the indentation we had created in the road. It took only a few moments for me to regain my composure and charge from my position as well. As I emerged, I saw that both Jr. and KOS-MOS were firing upon my attacker, and, having two targets, it seemed confused on which to attack. I decided that the two of them would soon vanquish it. I turned my head to see Shion and chaos standing over the ruin of the second monster, its burning carcass lying prostrate in the middle of the street. Shion looked up, saw me, and signaled that both she and the boy with her were fine. I nodded, but took sudden notice of the change in her expression.  
  
"Look out!" chaos shouted. I turned in a flash, the blade on my left arm shooting out and extending before me. I was rewarded with the sound of blade meeting body, the attacking Gnosis impaled upon the blade. It pulled back, roaring in frustration, and Jr. aimed his pistol at the creature's head. Just as it turned to KOS-MOS, its head exploded in a shower of blood, or at least what was blood by Gnosis standards. As it rained down upon us, I shielded my eyes by placing my left arm over my brow and watched as the body fell, dead, to the ground. A sigh of relief shuddered through my frame, and I fell to one knee, the blood still finding a way to leak from my right arm. Before I could try to stand, Shion was at my side, her hand resting on my left shoulder.  
  
"Ziggy, are you all right?" She asked, her eyes migrating to my wound. I nodded, and, with a grunt, pushed myself to my feet.  
  
"I'm fine. Did anyone else sustain any injuries?" I asked, my eyes searching for MOMO.  
  
"Jr.'s got a nasty cut near the hairline, and I think that I might have broken something... Nothing a little nanospray can't help," she added with a weak smile. I looked to see that Shion's left wrist was dangling at an unusual angle, and Jr. raised his hand to wipe blood from his eyes. Not surprisingly, KOS-MOS was untouched, looking as pristine and polished as the day she woke up. I felt the stinging sensation of nanospray on my wound, and I winced. chaos pocketed the bottle of the healing spray and smiled.  
  
"Where's MOMO gotten off to?" He asked me. "I didn't see her during the battle."  
  
"When the Gnosis attacked for the second time, I lost sight of her when-" I didn't need to finish the sentence that was escaping my mouth as MOMO ran between chaos and Shion and stopped next to me.  
  
"We have to get out of this district before the fires get out of control," she stated, out of breath. Had she run all the way from where we were first attacked? "If we get to the Durandal fast enough, I think that they can manipulate the weather controls to put out the fires." Jr. nodded.  
  
"We can control everything from the bridge. The faster we get up there, the faster everything can start getting back to normal." He glanced at me, then his eyes flicked to where the Gnosis had pinned me in the pavement. "Let's go before another Gnosis decides to show up." Hastily, we left for the shuttle pad, leaving the smoldering corpses of the Gnosis behind us. When we rounded the corner that lead to the landing pad, almost the entire crowd had dispersed. Only those who were too injured to walk onto the shuttle by themselves, along with their friends and family, were left. Jr. motioned for all of us to follow him, and we all stepped onto the shuttle. Just before the door started to close, I noticed that someone was not with us. I jumped from my seat.  
  
"Where's MOMO?" I asked. Shion looked around, then poked her head out of the opening to the shuttle. She looked back inside, her eyes resting on me.  
  
"She's still outside," Shion said. I furrowed my brows. Why was she doing out there? Shion turned back to the door and cupped her hands around her mouth.  
  
"MOMO! Hurry and get in!" She shouted. I could hear the mechanisms of the door starting to grind.  
  
"I'm okay! I've got to help treat these injured people. This person's bleeding heavily;" I could hear MOMO's voice come back through the air. I stepped forward.  
  
"I'll stay with her," I offered. Suddenly, the door began to close. Shion shouted back to MOMO.  
  
"All right! We'll come back for you soon!"  
  
If MOMO had made any response, I could not hear it, for the door slammed shut in front of us. A certain sense of doom gripped at my chest, and I was very nearly considering going to ask the computer to open the door and let me out. But the shuttle began to move forward, and Shion forced me into a seat.   
  
"She'll be fine," Shion assured me. "She's a strong girl. Besides," Shion took out some nanospray and handed it to me, "we can just take the next one back to pick her up." I held the nanospray lightly in my hand, unsure of what to do with it. Shion presented her broken wrist. "Would you?" I nodded, taking her hand gently in my own and spraying her wound with the tiny, healing robots. I could almost see them working on her wound, cleaning the blood and mending the bone and muscles. She took her hand back and moved the wrist back and forth with a smile.  
  
"She'll be fine," I repeated to myself, not sure that I was believing my own words.   
  
"We'll just be gone for a few minutes. Nothing could really happen to her." She sat up, the shuttle slowing as it approached the Durandal. "Thank you, Ziggy."  
  
"... It was nothing," I said, staring at the door. Shion was right. Nothing could happen to MOMO. She'll be fine.  
  
Please, God, say that she'll be fine.  
  
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AN: Thanks, everyone, for showing your support. I know it may sound weird, but the reviews really encourage me to keep writing, and when I get none, I tend to think that no one is reading. But anyway, I'm planning on taking this story all the way up to the end of Episode I. And if I can manage it after the game comes out, Episode II as well. Wish me luck, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 


	16. And Now You're Gone

Chapter Sixteen: And Now You're Gone  
  
Only Shion and I took the shuttle back to the Foundation to retrieve MOMO, seeing as Jr. and the others had to control all of the aspects of retaliation from the Durandal's bridge. There were no others in the shuttle returning, only the two of us. Shion was seated, but I found myself involuntarily pacing the length of the door. I was sure that she was fine, but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel a certain dread pulling on my heartstrings. After what had seemed like hours, the shuttle slowed to a stop and the door wound downward. I stepped out and instantly my scanners began searching for her.  
  
My heart stopped dead in my chest. Fear gripped my insides in its iron clutch. Frantically, my eyes swept over the shuttle port again and again. And every time I looked, she was still gone. Shion stepped out next to me, her head swiveling back and forth, obviously in search as well. I was suddenly overcome, and I moved from my spot to where some of the injured still lay.  
  
"MOMO!" I called into the crowd, wishing, hoping that she was just hidden from view. I looked down at a man that sat nursing an injured femur. "Have you seen a 100-series Realian come this way?" I asked intensely. The man shook his head, obviously in great amounts of pain. Frustrated, I left his side and would have gone dashing off into the city if Shion's calm hand had not latched itself onto my shoulder. I stared back at her, at first amazed that she would try to stop me. Then I saw the same look in her own eyes. My tense form relaxed.  
  
In my concern for MOMO, I had failed to notice the feelings of those around me, their feelings for MOMO. Now that my mind was finally flung wide open, I could see the concern in Shion's green eyes, see her maternal instincts evincing themselves at the thought of MOMO gone missing. And all this time, I had not only failed to see the feelings between Shion and MOMO, but also the friendship between Shion and myself. She must have noticed my gaze, for she looked past me and into the crowd.  
  
"Do... Do you think," Shion started, "that she might have gone back on a different shuttle?" I stared out at the crowd once again, and I decided that must have been what happened. MOMO rode back on another shuttle and was probably waiting for us on the Durandal. I took her hand from my shoulder and nodded to her.  
  
"Yes, she probably decided to return on her own instead of waiting for us." I knelt down next to the injured man I had shouted at, quickly apologized and asked if he needed assistance to reach the shuttle. As soon as I was standing again, the man perched precariously in my arms, I looked again to Shion. "We should head back to the Durandal as soon as possible." A smile spread itself over Shion's face, and she nodded as well.  
  
"Yes, let's." We made our way back to the shuttle, and as the shuttle's door closed, I could hear Shion laughing quietly to herself.   
  
"What's so funny?" I asked, sitting the injured man on one of the benches on the perimeter of the shuttle. Shion shook her head while her soft laugh filled the shuttle.  
  
"I let my feelings for MOMO take away my reason. Of course she came back on a different shuttle. I was just so worried about her..."  
  
"I understand, Shion." I told her as the shuttle began to slow upon approaching the Durandal. "I've seen cases where a man's emotion became so strong, his feelings for the person so potent, that he lost all sense of rationality and ruined not only the mission, but also the chance for that other person to live." My companion's hand covered her lips in surprise.  
  
"Who... Would I know who it was?" she asked quietly. I pressed my lips into a thin line, realizing that I had been talking about myself. I had been talking about my own experiences from 100 years ago. Slowly, I looked down to Shion's eyes, and I shook my head.  
  
"No. No, you wouldn't know him," I said a stoic voice. It was at that moment, realizing my mistakes from my past, that I decided that I could no longer throw my emotions into my mission with MOMO. I could no longer allow myself to think of her the way that I had been. I had been so worried about her only a few moments ago, but I realized that I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk losing her to my emotions too. I had already lost so many because of my damned emotions. It was because I cared about MOMO that I couldn't care about her. I closed my eyes fast and delved deep into my mind, trying to forget any emotions I had attached to the little Realian. It was hard. But in order to protect her, I had to forget how much I cared about her.  
  
The shuttle's door slid open with a hiss and I walked down the stairs, followed by a now silent Shion. As soon as I was off the landing pad, I scanned the dock for any sign of MOMO. A few other 100-series Realians were milling about, but none with the same vibrant pink hair as my charge. I frowned, my eyebrows furrowing in anxiety. Shion appeared by my side.  
  
"Do you see her?" she asked in a quiet tone. I shook my head.  
  
"She's not on the dock," I answered. "I don't even detect a trace of her." I shut my eyes again, trying not to think about any precarious positions she could be facing. I tried my hardest not to grit my teeth in anger at anyone who may harm her.  
  
"Ziggy?" I heard Shion's worried voice at my side, and I opened my eyes again, devoid of emotion.  
  
"We should check the Residential Area. She may have gone there looking for one of us." I set off for the train immediately, followed by a slower and more apprehensive Shion. I stated that our destination was for the Residential Area and sat on one of the padded seats. The doors closed just as Shion stepped into the train, and it took off at a great speed. She had her arms folded before her, clenching and unclenching her fists in anxiety, her eyes at her feet. Finally, she looked to me.  
  
"Ziggy, I shouldn't have pried, back on the shuttle. It's your own business, not mine."   
  
"It's all right," I assured her. "If it had been you telling the story, I would have asked the same question." Truth be told, I wouldn't have asked, but I didn't want any more worries on Shion's shoulders. There was enough weighing all of us down after so much had happened. The cold, set unease on her face lifted slightly with a sad smile, but as the train slowed, her face was a slight gray color. Our transport stopped altogether, and the two of us, along with a few others, piled out of the train and headed into the Residential Area. The first thing we were greeted with was Jr.'s red face as he dashed up to us.  
  
"Where's MOMO?!" he asked in a loud, obtrusive voice.   
  
"We think that she may have come back here, looking for one of us," I answered in a cold voice. Jr. stared at me, a look of disbelief on his face. Then his face contorted in anger, and his fist clenched like he wanted to punch me.  
  
"You lost her?!" His words stung, a deep spike driven through my chest. "You stupid cyborg, I'll-"  
  
"Jr.!" Shion started, her own face flushed. "You know as well as I do that MOMO stayed behind of her own accord. It's no one's fault that we can't find her." She breathed a long sigh and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "She's probably just waiting in her room."  
  
"Like hell," Jr. murmured, his strangely blue eyes glaring up at me. I grimaced as I mentally pulled the great imaginary spike from my body and gathered myself together. I walked past Jr. without another word, although I could still here the curses he was muttering under his breath. Unfazed, we entered the Residential Area, where the moans and cries of the injured civilians filled my ears. My first stop was MOMO's room. On my way there, I couldn't help to remember the promise I had made to her while she slept in that room. I remembered the fear in my heart when the Federation ships attacked, and I forced my way into MOMO's room. I closed my eyes in attempts to wipe away the feelings as I reached her door.  
  
First, I raised my hand to knock on the door, but instead, I tuned my scanners to searching her room from where I stood. There were no signs of life, let alone the one little Realian I was searching for. Defeated, I returned to the main hallway to join Shion and Jr. They both held expectant looks on their faces, but I shook my head in response. Jr. growled, and, without warning, screamed at the top of his lungs, venting his frustration. I couldn't help to stop and think that Jr. was acting exactly the way I felt inside. Stubbornly, I shoved aside my emotions and continued walking down the hall.  
  
"Allen!" Shion called from beside me. I looked up, having totally missed seeing her co-worker carrying a large first-aid box down the hallway. He turned with a smile and walked quickly toward us. Just as he stopped, my emotions broke free of the hold I was keeping them under.  
  
"Have you seen MOMO?!" I asked quickly. Shion glanced up at me quickly, then back to her red-headed friend. Allen's face screwed up in confusion, possibly at my sudden outburst, or maybe at the fact that I had no idea where MOMO was.  
  
"No," he started, looking from me to the red-faced Jr and back, "she's not back yet? I thought she was with you." Quickly, I shoved my feelings back into the darkness of my mind and continued in a calmer voice.  
  
"She stayed behind to treat the injured, but she wasn't there when we returned. We thought she might have come back on her own..." I looked down at Jr., and it seemed as if he had calmed down slightly, although there was a pinched annoyance on his face.  
  
"Damn, where the hell is she?" He paused to run a hand over his face slowly, then looked up at me with a different expression altogether. He actually looked ... normal. "All right, I'll get our 100-Series to start searching. They shouldn't have any trouble, being the same model and all." Surprised at his sudden change, I nodded and thanked him.  
  
"Thanks. We've eliminated the Gnosis within the Colony, but there isn't any guarantee they won't be back." There was a silence, then Jr. turned to leave, most likely headed to the bridge. There was also a silence between Shion and Allen. The latter's face had turned redder than his hair, and he started to inch backwards.  
  
"Well, uh... I've got to take care of these wounded people, but... I'll see you later, Chief... I hope you find MOMO soon..." He backed away, but as he did, I could see a faint smile hovering on Shion's face. She then turned to me.  
  
"We should follow Jr., so we know where to go when they find MOMO."  
  
"Yeah," I said quietly, "when they find her." She placed a comforting hand on my arm and smiled encouragingly.  
  
"Don't worry. They'll find MOMO. We probably just missed her somewhere, that's all." Her hand gently pushed me forward, and we began walking after Jr. After walking in silence for a few moments, I turned my eyes to my friend.  
  
"Shion," I caught her attention as she turned to look at me, "do you really think that MOMO, as smart as she is, left the Foundation without waiting for us to return?" She was silent. I was about to prompt her into speaking when she shrugged.  
  
"I don't know." Her eyes went to the floor. "I really don't know what to think. I don't want to think of the worst that could happen, because then I'll worry too much. I don't want to think that she's waiting on the bridge for us, either. In the little time I've known the two of you, I've come to think of you as good friends, and MOMO feels more like a daughter than a stranger. I worry about her, and I'm so scared that something bad may have happened to her." She looked up again, and I was startled to see her eyes covered with misty tears. "Do... Do you understand?" I wanted to tell her that I understood, that I thought of MOMO like a daughter. But I had locked my emotions far back in my mind.  
  
I looked away from her wet eyes and to the ground, where my feet were methodically plodding toward the train. I didn't have any answers.  
  
----------------------------------  
  
AN: So so sorry for the lack of updates, everyone, but I think I'm finally back on track with this story. Thanks for the support and you'll probably see another chapter soon! 


	17. Fear

AN: Oh... My... Goodness... Is it true? Am I really really posting a chapter of Promise? After almost a year of leaving it unattended? pinches self Ow! So it is true! Xenosaga Episode 2 has brought me out of my Promise slump! Good gravy! ... All right, here's the deal. A lot of people have been asking me about this fic recently, and I hve ressurected it for the love of the fans. I'm working on the next chapter as I write this. So, everyone tell me if I should keep trying to keep this fic alive, because it's always been my perosnal neglected favorite.  
Enjoy!

**Chapter Seventeen: Fear**

Shion left the train when it stopped at the bridge. I watched her go, and she paused at the doors, turning her head slightly. She seemed as if she had something to say. She tapped her fingers on the metal of the door nervously, and I cocked my head slightly.

"Shion," I started, "Jr. has the whole of the Durandal searching for MOMO at this point, I'm sure," I assured her. She bit her bottom lip.

"Will you be... all right?" She asked slowly. The question took me by surprise. I hadn't been asked that question in a long time. For a moment, for an instant, I let my mouth say exactly what I wanted to say.

"I don't know, Shion," I admitted. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, regaining control. "I will join you on the bridge shortly. I have something I need to take care of beforehand." Nodding, as if not completely sure she wanted me to go off on my own, Shion left the doorway, and the doors snapped shut soon after. I could see her through the glass window, waving slightly as the train took off. I folded my arms across my chest and looked away.

_That's right, Jan. Aloof and unattached. Just as it's always been, right?  
_  
"Stop it," I commanded harshly. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my human hand. "Just stop it."

_Don't get attached, Jan. You remember what happened last time. Remember Miltia, Jan.  
_  
I stood up quickly, just as the train rolled to a halt at the park of the Durandal. Without thinking, I stormed out of the doors and into the refreshing atmosphere of the park. I continued my angry charge until I was standing at the great, wide windows staring across the Kukai Foundation and ultimately the blackness of space. I leaned one arm onto the window in front of my face and subsequently rested my forehead on my arm. The cool air outside seeped through the glass and soothed my warm skin, and I exhaled loudly.

Upon opening my eyes, I watched the Gnosis swarm outside the walls of the Foundation. I watched blankly, fearlessly. They were circling us, I realized, though I didn't know why. Or even why they had chosen the Foundation as their target. Surely we didn't pose that much of a threat... Then it hit me, and I stood up from leaning on the window. Those... those things in the deep hangar of the Durandal... What had Shion called them? Zohar? Were they attracting the Gnosis? I remembered hearing Shion mention something along the lines once.

I was taken from my thoughts as I saw the Federation ships turning their guns not at the Gnosis, but straight at the Foundation. The refugee citizens that stood nearby, watching as well, gasped and screamed. The breath stilled in my throat. We were going to die. I was finally going to die.

_MOMO._

A flash of blinding light, a beam cannon, pierced the darkness of space. I shielded my eyes, tensing myself for the explosion. The light lessened. I looked up. The Gnosis were disintegrating before my eyes. The screams from around me turned to cheers and shouts. Voices began clamoring at once, and I turned to the nearest citizen.

"What's going on?" I asked. The woman was clapping zealously .

"The Dämmerung!" she cried. "The Dämmerung, we're saved!" Raising one bewildered eyebrow, I looked from the cheering woman to the window. I leapt back in surprise.

There was no way a ship could be that massive! It dwarfed the Kukai Foundation! Ships, smaller, thank God, surrounded it. Together, as a unit all of the smaller ships coordinated their attacks with the largest, and the Gnosis were obliterated as if the ripples in a pond scattered the drifting algae. I stepped away from the windows, staring in awe at the terrifying display of power. I nearly stepped into another citizen of the Foundation.

"I'm sorry-" I started, but I recognized the boy as the one MOMO had pointed out and saved on the Foundation. He stared at me, taking in the metalwork of my legs and the disquieting blade on my arm. We stood in silence for a scant few moments, staring at one another, then he shifted to the other foot.

"Don't worry," he told me comfortingly in his tiny voice. "I'm scared too."

I couldn't think of anything to say. My mind drew a blank. I could only stare. And the boy was right; I was terrified, and I was only just realizing it. Realization dawned in my entire body, and I was afraid. I was afraid, and the strangest thing was that I was admitting it. My body stiffened at the sudden realization, and I tried to look resolute in front of the child.

"You don't need to be worried about anything," I assured him. _I, on the other hand, am up to my neck in a swelling sea of troubles,_ I thought as I left him. He turned and followed.

"My name is David," he said, taking the steps two at a time to my one, falling into step with me. I nodded. A pause filled by our footsteps as we neared the exit.

"Ziggy," I said quietly. The boy smiled. I turned my head slightly. "Where are your parents?" He slowed to a stop.

"I can't find them... But I won't stop looking." He looked around the park at the chattering and excited citizens, then back to me. If only I could be more like that boy.

"David," I said as I knelt to his level, placing a hand on his shoulder, "keep looking for them. Never stop looking. They're out there, waiting for you to find them." David looked as if he did not comprehend for a long moment, then he nodded, a smile in his wide childish eyes. I patted him on the shoulder and left the park. David did not follow me.

Now I was traveling with a purpose. I hunted for the train, and it stood, silently, exactly where I had left it. I boarded and quickly barked out the order to relocate to the bridge. The speed of the train was bragged about for a reason, I found. It felt as if I had arrived before my next heartbeat had finished its say.

_Perhaps Jr. has already located her._

Don't get attached.

_They might even have the coordinates waiting._

Remember Miltia, Jan.

_Never stop looking. She's out there, waiting for you to find her.  
_  
I had entered the lift without knowing. My eyes washed over the now-familiar sight of the Durandal's bridge. The bright red hair of Jr., the well-known form of Shion, and a chipper-looking woman on an overhead screen beaming down at the Chief Engineer of Vector. I stepped forward tentatively, and Jr. turned his head only slightly to acknowledge my sudden appearance. I turned my eyes from the worried Shion to the overly-excited woman on the screen.

"Okay, I'll send it over then," she told Shion with exuberance. There was a pause on the bridge, a silence, as if everyone had been hanging on the words of this woman. I felt again as if I had missed something particularly important. As the bitter thoughts passed through my head, a small case appeared at Shion's feet. She knelt and opened it. If I had felt anything but the churning in my stomach, I could have laughed. The case held only one thing: a small, vaguely bullet-shaped object. Shion looked at it with fear in her glassy eyes.

"Miyuki? Isn't this...?"

"There's some type of force field concentrated near here," the new woman said. I looked up sharply. The nerves deep inside me had been struck. All of my attention was suddenly focused on the brown-haired young woman. "There's a very high probability that it's what's attracting the Gnosis." I looked away for one moment. So much for my own epiphany.

"A force field?" Shion asked incredulously.

"Right. The observational guys said whatever it is, it's definitely something man-made." For no reason, I felt an ire bubbling inside my throat, but I held my tongue. "Anyway, we can find the origin of this field if we link up the Dämmerung's mainframe with KOS-MOS' D.S.S.S. sensor. It appears as though the enemy's using some kind of cloaking device to conceal itself right now, but there should be a wrinkle or two in the surrounding space, though. We figured that if we can tear those open, we'll be able to find out what we're dealing with." The Dämmerung... I looked out of the bridge's observation window and saw it looming like a leviathan outside of the Foundation. The strange woman was in there, then.

"Is that why you gave me this PT cartridge?" Shion looked at the tiny object with dread. "I mean… Do you have any idea what this thing is?" I hoped dearly that she did, for my mind was yearning to know. Odd, how my own curiosity had survived so long.

"Of course!" A deadly pause. "Or so I'd like to claim, but I actually just transferred in, so I'm not really sure." I rolled my eyes, then checked myself. I clenched my fist involuntarily, easing the emotions from my throat.

"Look, Miyuki…" Shion presented the object. "This cartridge is a weapon! It sets off a phase transfer that destroys everything in the area." I stared, incredulous, at Shion. There was no way she'd allow... Now with MOMO missing... "It may be localized, but you could vaporize an entire star with this thing if you wanted to. You'd have to be insane to try using this in a populated area."

"Shion." I nearly jumped. I had completely failed to notice KOS-MOS. She had approached Shion without my noticing.

_You're getting old, Jan. One hundred years and counting.  
_  
I shut out the nagging voice in my mind, disgruntled.

"What is it, KOS-MOS?" Shion asked, who had obviously spotted the android long before I had. _Anger_. I shut out the emotion as quickly as it had come.

"By limiting the phase transfer mass, I can activate the device without impacting either the Federation fleet or the Kukai Foundation."

"You can do that?" Shion asked. _Skepticism_. I locked it away. How could Shion not know what her own creation was capable of?

"Affirmative. This is one of my many functions." I could have imagined KOS-MOS rolling her own dead eyes as she spoke expressionless. _Sarcasm_. That one I kept.

"Even the Rhine Maiden's got a limitation to how much she can fire. Let's take out the source before the Gnosis overwhelm us!" So the great savior ship was limited in how many lives it could save per hour. There was sarcasm again.

"But..." Shion's voice was meek and afraid. _Doubt_. That I had enough of on my own. I shoved it away, scowling.

"Shion…" Jr. spoke. Every head turned to him. His eyes were dark, cloudy, and yet terribly, horribly lucid. "This is the Song of Nephilim. There's no question about it."

Nephilim. A shock passed through me. That girl. That intense, all-seeing stare ripped through my mind, and I doubled backwards as if I had taken a blow to the chest. She was seeing me, and I was afraid.

_Fear.  
_  
I locked it away.

"The Song of Nephilim? What is it?" Shion asked, obviously not making the same connection I was furiously building in my mind. Jr. crossed his arms across his chest, shuddering minutely.

"The single worst creation that ever resulted from Joachim Mizrahi's research." _Shock_. It came flying to the front of my eyes. Mizrahi. _I had seen him die..._ "It was the Song that destroyed Miltia and summoned the Gnosis. We've gotta stop it before everything goes out of control."

"Out of control?" Shion looked from Jr. to the gargantuan Dämmerung just outside the foundation. Jr.'s mouth turned down.

"And we still haven't found MOMO yet. We've gotta move!"

That had done it. Not only had I failed, Jr. had failed where he had sworn he would surpass me. Fear, doubt, apprehension, they all came swooping upon me. My heart stopped cold, my breath caught.

"I know, but-" I cut Shion off, stepping forward to speak directly with the 100-Series Realians.

"Any sign of MOMO yet?" I could feel the fear in my voice. Jr. looked up sharply, and Shion spun toward my voice, as if noticing me for the first time.

"We're still scanning, but we haven't located her yet."  
_Don't worry, I'm scared too.  
_  
I took a deep breath. Just like that, the emotions dissipated like fog.

"I see..." I turned my eyes to Shion. _Dead eyes_. "We've got to make a decision, Shion. We can't hold out against another Gnosis attack."

I waited for agonizing moments, each of which felt like an eon, as Shion stared worriedly at me. I hadn't an idea why she seemed so vexed. I had sealed every dangerous emotion behind the stoic, solid look that I was giving to her.

_That is why she is worried._

I faltered in the mask of stoicism for only a flash, but Shion's face changed as mind did. Slowly, she turned the small cartridge over in her hands.

"...All right. Let's see what we can do."


	18. The Void Opens

**Chapter Eighteen: The Void Opens**

I crossed my arms, frowning obviously at the ground at my feet. Why couldn't I focus? I had never had such trouble before. I would simply find what emotion troubled me, take it by the scruff and tuck it away in the hidden part of myself. The part I kept locked away from the world. For nearly 100 years I had stored everything in that black hole that anchored itself to my soul. Why was everything I tried to place there now erupting back at me with 100 times the force?

Why did I want it to?

"Distortion detected at direction 8-0-1-8, near the U.M.N. structure." KOS-MOS' voice over the communicator brought my eyes to Shion, who was holding it in her hand as if it were a precious egg. "It is currently emitting a weak column pulse." Shion practically leapt at the words.

"That's it! And your line of fire?" Distortion crackled over the communicator.

"Line of fire, clear. Awaiting orders."

_Clear, except for KOS-MOS herself.  
_  
I shook my head slightly to rid the thought from my mind.

"Shelley, are the anti-electromagnetic shields ready?" Shion turned to the helm, where Shelley sat, calmly punching buttons, as if she herself were an android. Shelley met Shion's eyes and nodded.

"Preparations are complete. You may fire at will." I turned my eyes from the two women, to where a plainly defined KOS-MOS was hovering in space outside of the Foundation.

"Roger," Shion sounded from nearby. "KOS-MOS, fire the phase transfer cannon!"

There was only the tiniest of pauses in which I could shift my weight to the opposite foot in anticipation. In a fraction of an instant, the darkness outside the Foundation lit up with a terrible and blinding light. I shielded my eyes, wanting to see something, anything. I squinted against the light, and could make out the darker form of KOS-MOS shooting what appeared to be a concentrated beam of energy into the space she had specified. I took a step back to gather the full spectacle in my line of sight. Space itself seemed to contort and warp at the provocation of the gun powered by the strange woman's cartridge. I watched as the sky reeled in pain, the stars winking in and out of existence by the mere suggestion of the powerful weapon that KOS-MOS wielded against it.

Then I saw it. That thing, that craft that would change me. The Song of Nephilim. I could feel the fear and the wrath bubbling in my gut at the very sight of it. As the light faded, the prism-shaped ship stood out against the darkness of space once again, shown for what it was. I pulled my lips back and scowled.

"I knew it," Gaignun muttered against his breath, for the first time since I had known him, actually showing concern.

"It's exactly the same," Jr. growled as he glared death at the obviously familiar craft. "Nothing's changed at all." Shion placed a frightened hand over her mouth.

"So that's...the Song of Nephilim." Her voice lessened, and I heard her vaguely whisper, "Dr. Mizrahi's... Miltia's..."

For a moment, I thought I was actually going to go to her, to comfort her. I stopped myself short.

_Concern._

There was one I hadn't felt in a while. Not since MOMO.

Jr. reeled backward, his eyes wide and frightened. I thought he had taken a blow, and moved forward quickly. Then his astonished voice broke through, and he stumbled backwards.

"MOMO," his voice came low at first. Then, anger spreading across his face like fire, he shouted across the bridge, "MOMO's inside that thing!"

I looked frantically from the Song of Nephilim to Jr., not willing to accept it.

"Are you certain?" I interjected incredulously. Mary beat him to it.

"Scanners!" she prompted the 100-Series, who tapped their consoles like mad. One popped her small, blue-haired head up quickly, her pigtails swiveling on her head. I choked back images of MOMO brought on by the movement.

"100-Series Observational Unit prototype MOMO tracked and located! She's in the middle of the distortion caused by the phase transfer." I shot my eyes to the window of the bridge, glaring out at the Song of Nephilim. It simply hung in space, as if mocking us.

"MOMO?" I turned my head slightly. It was Allen. "What's she doing in there?"

_Why does that matter? What are we waiting for? She's out there, and by God-_

"Damn it!" Jr. cried, slamming his fists against the console in front of him. "It's him...Albedo!" The bridge's silence deepened. "I felt his presence the moment I heard MOMO's voice." I eyed the boy minutely. What on earth wa he talking about? Was he even answering anyone's question?

"Ah... Albedo," Gaignun muttered, as if tasting a bitter wine. "That explains what that unsettling feeling was about. Not to mention why she's there."

I furrowed my eyebrows. My pulse increased, and I clenched my fists together involuntarily as I stepped up to the man, as if in challenge.

"What do you mean?" I growled. Jr. turned, both pairs of similar eyes on me, as if surprised at the emotion surging through my voice. This time, I didn't hide anything.

"That girl, MOMO," he paused, as if enjoying the sound of his own voice, "not only is she a specialized Realian, but also the repository for the late Joachim Mizrahi's records." I gritted my teeth. _MOMO and I had seen him die_... "Albedo and the U-TIC Organization want that information. They wanted it for a long time." U-TIC. That I understood.

"Albedo?" Allen sounded, scratching his head. "Who's that?"

Jr. balled his hands into intense fists, his knuckles whitening as he stared furiously toward the Song of Nephilim.

"My dark half," he muttered throatily. "The part I've tried to hide away."

"Dark half?" Allen asked, as if expecting the suddenly cryptic red-head to answer him. I ignored him, not forgetting my rage.

"Jr.," I said flatly, stepping toward him slowly. I had made up my mind. "Get this ship, closer to the Song of Nephilim." Allen's mouth hung open in protest.

"Whaat!" He shouted. Shion's eyes widened. I paid no attention to either of them, staring Jr. straight in the eye. He glared back.

"It isn't necessary to get too close," I assured him haughtily. "Just lend me a shuttle; that'll be enough." Without another word, I turned my back on him, determined to reach the lift. I had to find her.

Jr. had other plans. His light footfalls followed mine intensely until he had overtaken me. His hand attempted to stop my progress, but it was the hate in his eyes that halted my steps.

"Hold it! Where do you think you're going?" He demanded. He retracted his hand from my path, but his eyes did not change. "_I'm_ going to save MOMO... No matter what!"

_That arrogant son of a bitch.  
_  
"Don't bother," I exploded, my eyes mirroring his. If I hadn't restrained myself, I would have removed him from my path with a swift kick to the groin. A split-second lapsed where Jr.'s pupil's contracted in surprise. Then he neared, ready to fight if necessary.

"What did you say!" He shouted, as close to my face as he could manage.

The entirety of the bridge was hanging on our words, with breath abated. I knew they expected this much from Jr., but what of the cyborg, who never so much as looked wrong at either of them before? I tried to calm myself a degree, breathing deeper than before.

"When someone close to you is in danger, you lose your objectivity. And it almost always ends in tragedy. I've," I paused, fighting the flood of memories that begged to burst from the abyss of my memory, "seen it happen too often."

_You old hypocrite.  
_  
"Oh, what, so I'm just like them now!" Jr. attacked back, his anger unquenched, the fire in his face as bright as his hair.

"Aren't you?" I shot back, louder. Jr. closed his mouth, staring intently. "This Albedo person... When you finally confront him, do you think you can keep your head straight?" The face Jr. put on, almost a pathetic pout, convinced me he couldn't. It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "If you honestly say yes, that's all I have to say. But if you can't..." Jr. crossed his arms and stared at the ground, as if he could burn a hole under my feet and make me fall into space. Then he looked back up, his lip curling in a defiant sneer.

"You're really something, you know that? You think you're such a hardened soldier compared to me. Tell me then," he coughed, glowering at me with revulsion, "how can I become cold and detached like you?"

"Only allow yourself to think of numbers and battle strategy," I murmured, feeling the ache in my heart at the words. "Don't let your mind wander to the faces or voices of those precious to you... even when it seems cruel not to. Too intense of an interference will overwhelm and ruin everything." I paused ever so slightly. I realized now that I wasn't only talking to Jr. I was trying to convince myself, trying to make my own aching heart understand. "That's what I've learned over these past hundred years." Jr. stared intently at me for a moment, then gave a single, low, mirthless laugh. He turned his back to me, staring at the lift, then looked casually over his shoulder.

"The day numbers and battle strategies replace people," he said, quietly over the deadly silence of the bridge, "it'll be game over, cyborg."

_He's going to walk away, just like that._

"Jr.," I called. He stopped. I wanted to shout at him, just as he had done to me. I wanted him to feel the pain I felt now, deep in my heart. But I couldn't. As much as he must have hated me, I couldn't help but remember that this boy was my friend, and he, too, cared for MOMO. As much as I wanted to eject him into open space, I knew that I couldn't. "Remember to stay focused, no matter what he does to MOMO," I told him finally. "Only by doing so will you be able to save her. Listen to my advice." _It's my fault he died._ "I know what you're going through."

Then, Jr. turned from the lift, facing me. It was the same look he had given me on our trip to Old Miltia in KOS-MOS' Encephalon. That same curious, probing look, as if he expected me to divulge something to him. I averted my eyes. Who knows what he would find if he looked hard enough?

Life slowly started to stir on the bridge. Others moved besides Jr. and myself. Shion stepped cautiously forward. My surprise came when she looked toward me an not to Jr. I tried to hide my disbelief.

"Ziggy," she said cautiously, peeking her green eyes around my broad shoulder to look me in the eye, "are you feeling all right? I've never seen you act... like that..." she trailed off, perhaps thinking the question sounded odd. I shook my head honestly.

"Not until we find MOMO," I answered. I chanced a ghost of a smile. "After that, I'll have time to... 'feel all right'." Shion's nervous face twitched into a mirror of my own.

"The Foundation has its hands full dealing with the waves of Gnosis," Gaignun said quickly, and all eyes shot to him. "We cannot move from our current location. We'll need a ship with sufficient mobility in order to get past the Gnosis and dock with the Song of Nephilim." Jr. rubbed his hair in thought.

"The Durandal's landing shuttle won't do. How about the Elsa? Is it operational?" I smirked. The Elsa was seeming more and more like our sorry pack mule every misadventure we decided to take on. There was a pause and the beeping of buttons on a console.

"Yes," Shelley answered after a time. "I checked its status just now, and fortunately, it seems to be unharmed. Shall we relay a message to Captain Matthews?" Jr. nodded quickly, his eyes darting to the Song of Nephilim and back.

"Yeah, go ahead," he said loudly. Then, in a lower voice, he muttered, "Damn, that feeling I got from him. That bastard was trying to access MOMO's subconscious." He looked up sharply, to my astonishment, to meet mine. "We don't have time! Let's go old man! chaos!" He nodded his head for the two of us to follow him. I, for one, thought that he would try to have me tossed out of an airlock rather than let me tag along. Maybe it was that look, the examining look he had given me, that had suddenly changed his mind. I had started to follow, when Shion's voice cried out from beside me.

"Wait, Jr., let us help too!" she pleaded.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Jr. rebounded, his movements exaggerated by his infuriation. "You have any idea what kind of place that is! Do you know what that lunatic is like!" Personally, taking my eyes from Jr. to the young woman, I made the assumption that she did not. And neither did I, for that matter.

"Please! Let us go with you," her voice dripped with sorrow.

"Shion..." Jr. breathed with a sigh of exasperation. Shion stared him down impertinently. He gave another growling sigh. "All right. But you better not let your guard down, even for a second. There's no room for mistakes in there, got it?"

"Yes," Shion added quickly, back to her normal, bubbly self in no time. Had the situation allowed for it, I would have rolled my eyes at her expense. But then, as I watched her follow Jr. and chaos to the lift, I saw in her eyes what I had seen in Jr.'s. She loved MOMO. We all did. There wasn't a soul among us that didn't resonate with hers.

_Jealousy._

The void in my heart was reversing itself.

Everything I had tried so hard, for so many years, to hide away was returning like a speeding train to my mind. Could I really expect Jr. to follow my advice... when I couldn't even follow it of my own accord?

AN: YES! Spring Break without a compy is ovah! You may all now enjoy one of the most fun chapters I've had the pleasure to write! FEEDBACK OO;;


	19. Bringing Down the Walls

**Chapter Nineteen: Bringing Down the Walls**

I counted the seconds between the bridge and the doors of the Elsa. 327 seconds where I felt as if I couldn't breathe.

When the familiar and welcome walls of the Elsa enveloped us, I took a long, slow breath. The engines had already been started, and the ship rumbled warmly beneath my feet. Captain Matthews knew where we were going, and what we were planning to do.

I looked to my side. The emptiness beside me should have been filled by the smiling Realian who we were setting out to reclaim. The little girl who I had come to-

_Love, Jan? Were you about to say love?_

No.

I'd forgotten love a long time ago.

The heavy doors to the Elsa's bridge slid open, revealing the crew members in preparation for take off. chaos dutifully took to his own station, like a lost puppy knowingly taking its place in its dog house. Hammer glanced up as we arrived, flashing us a thumbs-up and a grin, turning back to his console. The gears in Captain Matthews' mechanical chair grinded as he lowered himself to our level.

"Going to the Song of Nephilim, right?" he asked as he pulled a fresh cigarette from between his teeth. "Just so you know, I don't intend to leave the Song of Nephilim until we've rescued MOMO. You better get ready!"

Jr. turned his eyes to every one of us in turn, as if asking us if we truly wanted to go through with our plan. When he met my gaze, I saw him blink rapidly in surprise. I let him know that I was not backing down, not now. Jr. looked up at the Captain

"You bet we're ready," he answered in a low tone. Matthews tried to look as if he was annoyed with the news, but I knew better.

"Man, I can't believe I'm stuck doing this," he muttered mechanically through his teeth. "You better fork over a lot of hazard pay!"

"Don't worry," Shion said, her eyes focused on the Captain's intently. He faltered for a moment, then cleared his throat, elevating his chair once more.

"Hey, Tony! Get us outta here, pronto!" He called loudly. The helmsman stuck his thumb into the air as an affirmative.

"Aye-aye Captain!" he said jovially. The thrusters fired at his command, and the locks holding us to the catwalk unlocked with a severed clicking. The shutters on the forward bay windows opened with a mechanical whirring, revealing the innards of the Durandal's port. In the distance, the hangar door opened to allow us passage into the outside blackness of space. I grimaced widely.

The Elsa veered out of the wide hangar, turning sharply as it exited the Durandal. An extra boost from the rear thrusters sent us hurtling straight into the crossfire between the Dämmerung and the still-present Gnosis.

Funny, I had all but forgotten them.

As Tony ducked and weaved the ship artfully through the war zone, my eyes fixed themselves on the Song of Nephilim. It loomed before us, a leviathan. MOMO was in there, somewhere, with, from what little information Jr. had allowed, what was to be considered a madman.

_MOMO... I let you down._

I felt a strange weakness in my knees. I ran a quick systems check and found nothing was wrong.

_I let you down. I failed. I turned my back for a moment, and you were gone._

Gone.

My knees buckled, and I stumbled slightly. Shion, surprise in her vibrant green eyes, looked to me with surprise.

"Ziggy," she asked, "are you okay?" I nodded lightly, regaining my footing.

"Yes, I'm..." I glanced at the Song of Nephilim. A dark feeling deep in my gut. "I'm fine."

_MOMO is going to die, and it's all your fault, Jan._

Shion stared at the pallor of my face, her eyebrows tilting upward, a sign of concern. "Are you sure?" she voiced softly. She raised her hand from her side, perhaps in attempts to console.

I shied from her hand, afraid of her touch. She withdrew the hand slightly. I took a step backward.

"Yes, I'm..." I trailed off pathetically, the pain of the whispered statement in my mind burning into me. Without even finishing my thought, I turned away from the woman, away from the oppressive sight of the Song of Nephilim. I couldn't stand to look at it any longer. It only brought the strange, pounding feeling in my gut and the unexplained weakness of my knees. The door leading from the bridge opened as I neared and shut quietly behind me. I didn't care if Shion followed me.

I didn't care anymore.

I had failed.

I had failed in my promise, that whispered promise while she slept, to protect her. To make sure she met with no harm.

I clenched my human fist, painfully digging my fingers into the flesh of my palm. Something in me snapped then. With a growl of anger, I lashed out the balled fist. It cracked into the wall of the Elsa loudly, painfully. The sound reverberated in the empty hall of fist meeting metal. I raised my hand again, mechanically, and repeated the motion over again. The dull sound filled my ears.

Anger seethed and boiled in me. Anger at myself.

Again my fist met the wall. It buckled slightly under the pressure. Again the pain filled my arm. Again I was reminded of MOMO's plight, and how it was my fault that she was facing it.

_My fault._

I grounded my fist into the wall.

_My fault._

The metal under my fist squealed in pain.

_My fault... just like before._

I pulled my arm back, far back, to strike out at the wall again, to release the anger in my heart, when I felt two hands take it gently to prevent me from harming either the wall or myself any further. My eyes, ablaze with the anger escaping from the void, turned to see who had stopped me.

Shion was silent, holding my throbbing hand in both of hers, a pained light in her eyes.. Tension suddenly slipped from me, the anger creeping back into my locked soul, and I slowly released the fist I had made in my right hand. Her smaller hands slipped from mine, and my arm fell harmlessly to my side.

She let the silence saturate itself in the once-noisy hall, before she said, in a quiet tone, "What's wrong, Ziggy? Please talk to me." Briefly, I glanced at her eyes, seeing nothing but confidentiality. I shook my head.

"No, Shion, I don't wish to-"

"I know it's about MOMO," Shion muttered.

As if losing all of my strength, I fell back against the cool metal wall, utterly defeated.

"Yes," I said quietly. That was all. A silence passed between us, and I hated it more than the clanging of the wall in my outburst. Shion slowly leaned against the wall next to me.

"MOMO... She's a strong girl," Shion tried to comfort me. "You shouldn't let it get to you."

"No," I said again, shaking my head. "I can't just let it go, as if another passing thing. I swore that I would protect her, never let her be placed in harm's way or-" A searing shock of pain passed through me. "Or killed," I finished, quieter. Shion saw the change that went through me, for she turned to face me.

"I know that MOMO cares about you, Ziggy," she said. I glanced up. "More than you want to realize. Even what you were saying to Jr. on the Durandal..." She made as if to lace her hand on my shoulder, but thought better of it. "It's okay to care about her."

"No, I..." I could feel the hidden emotions wishing to show themselves, to see the light. I calmed myself a degree. "If emotions are allowed to take hold, the whole mission could crumble."

Even as I said the words, I knew I was lying. All I wanted was to see MOMO. Just to see her, know that she came to no harm. To hold her, safe in my arms, seemed too much to ask.

Shion inspected my impassable face, and, thinking the case lost, turned from me to head toward the bridge. I almost said nothing. But my voice called out before I could stop it.

"Shion," I said in an undertone. She turned. "If... If I care about MOMO... then perhaps I should not accompany you on this mission." Shion smiled then. They way it seemed almost to imitate MOMO's seemed a mockery. Then it took on its own shape, Shion's smile, contented, pleased.

"If you care about her, it's all the more reason to go after her."

With that, I was left standing alone in the hall. I scrutinized the spot in the wall that had undergone my brutal treatment. I could have laughed. I hadn't known I had been holding back. It was all that was left of my sudden outburst. I sighed, pushing my body off of the cold wall with a grunt.

What if Jr. and Shion were right? Had I been wrong all of this time? Who should I believe? Closing my eyes, I answered my own question. Hiding behind my eyelids was the image of MOMO, hiding behind the bars of the U-TIC prison cell. Her hopeful golden eyes peering up at me with curiosity, smiling sweetly as the door opened to my touch. Then she told me her name. A pang in my heart. MOMO.

_Ziggy..._

I looked up sharply. It had been MOMO's voice. My heart was racing. It was her voice in my mind.

_Ziggy... I'm scared..._

"MOMO," I said into the hall, half expecting her to answer me.

She was in danger, and it was my fault. But now it was my duty to find her, to protect her, to-

_Say it, Jan._

To love her.

Realization poured over me like a sudden rain. It took the breath right from my chest. I loved MOMO Mizrahi as if she had been born from me. And I never knew, not until that very moment. I loved MOMO like the daughter I never had, and she loved me like the father she should have had.

I turned from my position, and I stepped onto the bridge.

* * *

AN: Man oh man... Can you believe I had the majority of this chapter written since last year? That's how excited I was about this plot point. I hope everyone likes it, and I hope it fits in well. Shout out to my biggest fan, you know who you are. XD Here's to all Ziggy fans; may he be the coolest cyborg ever. Oh wait... he IS! 


	20. The Song of Nephilim

**Chapter Twenty: The Song of Nephilim**

I stood between Shion and Jr., the door out of the Elsa still shut fast before us. Hammer was on the bridge, to my knowledge, setting up a secure airlock for us to walk through to the Song of Nephilim. My heart thundered away, not knowing what to expect once the door opened. What I would see... What I would hear... Who I would find. I inhaled deeply to calm myself. Jr. glanced up, and I met his gaze.

"When we find MOMO," I started slowly, "we should find what is drawing the Gnosis and destroy it." Jr. seemed to stare without blinking.

"I know what I need to do," Jr. breathed quietly, averting his eyes. As he did so, the light above the door changed to a soft green. Hammer's voice echoed over the PA system.

"All right, guys, the airlock is sealed. It should be safe to go through to the Song of Nephilim."

"There is only a 5.756 percent chance that there is a malfunction in the Elsa's airlock system," KOS-MOS droned robotically from behind me.

"We'll stay docked here 'till you're ready to leave," the Captain said in his throaty growl. "If it gets too rough in there, don't think you can't come back." Shion nodded solemnly.

"Thanks," she whispered, even though she knew Matthews couldn't hear her. The door slid open with the slightest grinding, revealing a metal catwalk extending toward the sheer vertical face of the Song of Nephilim. I didn't dare to look up or down, lest my resolve fail me. Jr. was the first to gather his strength and step onto the catwalk. On all sides, we were surrounded by what seemed to be a thin membranous sheet, but I knew was some sort of airlock technology that was beyond me. I just continued to walk, following Jr.'s cautious footsteps.

There was an opening, just as Hammer had mentioned, in the side of the face of the Song of Nephilim. The airlock had been attached just around it, the catwalk deployed by the Elsa barely reaching the distance across empty space. Jr. gingerly stepped the remaining foot or so that the metal platform failed to cover and stepped into the doorway. He was gone into darkness.

Being quite a bit taller than the boy, I took a step over the space and stood in the doorway. I held out my hand, which Shion took to help take the small leap without the chance of failure. She followed Jr. into the darkness. I offered my hand to chaos, and he politely refused, taking the gap on his own. KOS-MOS stared into the emptiness of my hand that was extended toward her.

"Ziggurat 8," she said in her low monotone, "why have you extended your right arm in my direction? I detect no threat in the immediate vicinity." I gave her a strange look.

"I'm offering to help you over the gap," I told her plainly. She stared at the gap for a long moment, then looked back up to me.

"I have calculated the width of the gap to be precisely 14 inches, 5 centimeters, 2.65 nanometers in length. I will not need assistance to cross the break, though I have found that my databanks tell me that, in order to interact with humans, therefore cyborgs, more properly, I am to respond to your offer by thanking you." She then took a long stride and took the space on her own. I followed the others silently, taking one look back to the Elsa.

As soon as the darkness enveloped me, the special enhancements that had been added to me in my 100 years of service kicked in. The darkness melted away as I blinked rapidly, accustomed to the change by now. I saw the heat of those around me, though KOS-MOS' body gave off none but the inner workings of her mechanical parts. Shion was feeling her way along the walls of the long corridor, and Jr. had both of his guns drawn. Strangely, neither chaos nor KOS-MOS seemed to have any trouble navigating the inky blackness of the innards of the Song of Nephilim.

Then a wave of cold air washed over me, and I visibly shook from the chill. Shion gave a quick gasp and wrapped her arms around herself. I could see that the corridor ended abruptly, and a gargantuan room opened up outside of it. And it was dimly lit, at that. My eyes began to adjust themselves again as the light grew ever so little. Shion noticed the change, as did Jr. We were closing in on the room that felt as vast as the open air.

We entered it as one, the corridor opening onto what seemed to be a bridge across a vast chasm. There was no telling what was above or below. Not even my enhanced eyesight could see that far. Not unless I decided to fling myself over the edge would I find what was below us as we crossed the bridge.

Little did I know how comforting that idea would seem only a few moments later.

Jr. was running. I didn't know what he was running to, all I knew that my heart had suddenly dropped into my stomach and my legs felt heavier than they really were.

It was just as if another bullet had rent a hole through me when I heard Jr. shout, anguished:

"MOMO!"

I could see her little boots sticking out, limply, pitifully, from behind a pile of stacked boxes. I stopped moving. I _couldn't_ move. No matter how hard I tried, my body wouldn't respond. My mind was frozen, and my world fell into tiny pieces around me, like glass shattering to my feet. Nothing, no words, no breath, could pass the immovable lump caught in my throat as I saw Jr. cradling MOMO's limp body in his arms.

Again and again he called out her name, each time as ineffectual as the next. Shion covered her face with her hands and had turned away, chaos reassuring her with hands on her shoulders. No one could comfort me.

I couldn't lose her.

I just couldn't. . .

I had promised. . .

_I promised to her that I would never let anything happen to make her lose that smile, lose that spark that shone from within her that made her who she was. I would never allow a repeat of that day._

Her eyes fluttered open slowly.

I breathed again.

Jr. looked equally as surprised, and he nearly dropped the limp girl with a gasp. I was finally able to move closer, however slowly.

"You all right?" he asked tentatively. MOMO's glassy eyes stared up at the boy as if she were not seeing him. Her mouth, pale and emotionless, did not move in response.

"Don't tell me..." His voice was thin, dejected. "We're too late?" MOMO sat up on her own, staring curiously at all of us. Jr. shot up, his fists clenched. "Damn, that bastard! He's taken her consciousness!" He stared fervently at MOMO, then to the door opposite the one we had entered through. "I'm gonna make him pay for this! Hold on, MOMO! I'll make you whole again!"

"Jr.!" Shion's voice echoed in the cavernous ravine. Jr. stopped and turned. Shion was kneeling next to MOMO, feeling the girl's hands in her own. "What happened to MOMO?" The Realian staring blankly into Shion's green eyes. Jr. watched the pair intensely.

"That monster Albedo's gone and reversed the spiritual link," he said, quietly.

There was a deadly pause. I locked eyes with MOMO, at last. She stared into me, into my mind, my soul. My throat grew dry, my breath short. For the first time since I had met her, I wanted to break my eyes from her, to look anywhere but to those eyes. I rested my gaze on Jr. After only a few tries, I found enough breath to speak.

"Reversed the spiritual link?" I asked, once again out of the technological loop. Jr. looked over his shoulder at me, as if afraid to look at MOMO.

"It's the opposite of what Gaignun and I do when we communicate telepathically." He held a hand to his forehead as if to emphasize the point. "But by seizing someone's consciousness, you can delve inside the other person's mind and drag out whatever memories you feel like taking." He turned to face MOMO and Shion. I could hardly bear to see the girl, her likeness to a doll so much more pronounced. Shion looked horrified, her face the image how the emotions I was unable to express.

"You can't be serious!" Shion's voice trembled, looking deep into MOMO's glass eyes. "That means MOMO's mind is..." Shion trailed off, her sentence too painful to end. I was glad that she didn't.

"Yeah." Jr. looked at all of us for a long time, most of his gazes resting on MOMO. "It's best for you all to go back. I'll handle this on my own." He turned again, ready to leave us, just as we were.

I wasn't about to let him.

"Wait!" It was chaos. I stared at him in incredulity. He was usually the one who never said a word of protest. "It's too dangerous to go alone!" Jr. stared him down.

"Sorry," Jr. answered in a tough growl. "This is between me and him." He stared then at me, as if challenging me to stop him, as I had tried to on the Durandal. "All right?"

"But still," chaos pleaded.

Then MOMO stirred. Her first movement since she sat up in Jr.'s arms. I watched, pain in my heart with her every mechanical and plodding step, as she walked toward Jr. The red-head watched as well, his eyes growing sadder as she neared.

"MOMO," his voice faltered for an instant, and he paused to regain control. "You... wanna come with me?" Slowly, as if having to plot the movement out inch by inch, MOMO nodded, her eyes unblinking. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned my head to see Shion pulling herself off of the ground using my shoulder as a fulcrum. Impassioned, she stepped forward to Jr.

"I'm going, too," she announced.

"Shion," Jr. pleaded. But I already knew enough about the woman to know that when she cared about something there was nothing that could stop her, least of all the boy before her.

"Don't you remember what you told me?" she asked, staring at him. "This song... it's responsible for destroying Miltia and bringing the Gnosis into this world. If this has anything to do with that place that I know of, then," she paused, tears glistening in her eyes as she looked at MOMO, "this involves me as well."

Jr. looked to the ground, for a long while pondering the thought. Our breathing filled the empty void that surrounded us, the huge gorge below echoing our very thoughts in the silence. It was my turn to step forward, to say my piece. I looked down to Jr., his own face to the floor.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're the only one here who cares about what happens to MOMO," I told him in a low voice. He glanced up, half-heartedly. "Either we all fight together, or we fall divided." He was silent, matching my cold stare with his own, blue meeting blue as our eyes locked as if in battle.

At last, Jr. gave a hollow laugh, and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Sure, why the hell not?" His voice was low, full of hidden emotion, a tactic I knew too well. "Let's make it one big party." The sarcasm was not lost, and it hung in the cold, stale air of the void. His sudden flare of anger melted away, and resolve stood in its place. He took out both of the guns he cherished from their holsters and cocked them respectively.

Jr. led the way, followed by Shion and KOS-MOS, standing close, chaos slightly behind. I took up the rear. MOMO, the sad, silent porcelain doll that she had transformed into, plodded without words beside me. We were swallowed by the darkness as we entered the doorway opposite the entrance.

Despite what Matthews had told us, we all knew that we would not turn back.

Not now.

* * *

AN: All right! Finally to the Song! Took me long enough >.>;; Anyway, there's a quite in italics up there, and I don't think anyone would remember, but it's from the first chapter. Look it up if you like, but it's not necessarry. But I'll tell you what IS neccessary... REVIEWS! o.o! Reviews are what help me get along, and if no one reviews, I don't hik anyone is reading. So, if you want more Promise, I'll need more reviews. You are all so awesome, I just love you all... Thanks so much for reading my story, even if you don't review. You're all good people!


	21. Eyes of a Doll

**Chapter Twenty-One: Eyes of a Doll**

Our steps were as hollow as my heart. I didn't know if I would ever be able to feel again. I couldn't even bring myself to _look_ at her. Her face was so pale, her eyes... That sparkle was gone from them, as if she wasn't even seeing at all. Her gait was thick and untrained as if slogging through an invisible mire. I wanted to say something to her, to reach out to see if this MOMO was even real, not simply an embodiment of my fears. She looked just about as incapable of emotion as...

... as me.

I tore my eyes from MOMO's dragging feet, agonizingly staring at anything but the pronounced machine-like attributes of the Realian. We were in another cold, empty hallway. Jr. had led us down a maze of them already, none of them leading to anywhere but our point of origin. If my mind hadn't been so firmly planted with MOMO, I would have very much liked to have smacked the boy over the head. Yet he still had both guns drawn, ready at every minute turn of the hall. It was with this thought that KOS-MOS stopped abruptly in front of me.

"Unidentified object approaching from the rear," her metallic voice stated nonchalantly. "Composition: metallic alloys and electrical components similar to those used in robotic construction. There is a 93.7698 percent chance that the object is approaching at charging speed, and is therefore classified as an enemy. Ziggurat 8," the android turned toward me, her machine guns suddenly at her side. "take evasive action."

I had only enough time to shove my body against the nearest wall, taking MOMO with me. The guns at the tips of the android's fingers erupted into a symphony of raining bullets and metal on metal as they collided with the approaching enemy. I pulled MOMO close, shielding her now more fragile body from the battle before us. The machine quickly fell, smoking, to the floor. The light at its foremost protrusion, indicating operating functions, switched off with a click. My grip on the girl in my arms lessened, and she stumbled out of my reach, as if she were a discarded doll.

She slowly, mechanically, righted herself, her feet taking the appropriate places beneath her form. MOMO turned her head, and she stared at me. There was nothing behind her eyes. Nothing. No warmth, no love, not even sadness. It was as if her entire being had been taken away by the tide. And I was afraid. More afraid than I had been when I had seen my death approaching on the Durandal, more frightened than when I discovered MOMO's hidden location was inside the Song of Nephilim. Those lifeless blank eyes... My insides churned as I stared back, unable to look away.

Then she turned her head again, and her gaze fixed itself elsewhere.

If I had thought myself capable of the emotion at all, it would have been at that moment I would have chosen to shed a tear. The indescribable feeling moved from my gut to my chest, where it hung itself to steal my breath.

_What did that bastard do to you, MOMO?_

As if nothing had happened, I pulled myself from the wall and followed the others. It was only Jr. that lagged. He was staring, now, at MOMO. As I watched the changes of his face, I saw what I had felt only moments ago. Fear, sorrow, anger, all at once. They were a dangerous combination. I stood suddenly beside MOMO.

"Jr.," I caught his attention, and he looked away from MOMO sharply. "We should keep going."

"Yeah..." Jr. trailed off, turning as he did so. I gently reached out to take MOMO's shoulder encouragingly in my grip.

"Come on, MOMO," I suggested, feeling my voice wish to catch. I refused. The girl looked up, almost inquisitively. Then she opened her mouth, her lips forming her own name, rounding widely and expressively, like a child first learning to speak. Then came her voice. The sweetest voice I had ever heard, brought back from the recesses of that far away time before the Song of Nephilim appeared in the line of KOS-MOS' gunfire.

"MOMO," her infantile syllable pronunciation inched from her lips. She walked on with me, following the others quietly. After a long fight with myself, I nodded.

"Yes," I assured her. I then took her hand in my own and placed her fingertips on my arm, leaving it to rest there on its own. "Ziggy," I encouraged. Again, she formed the word primitively first, then sounded out my name, the name she had given to me.

"Ziggy," she mouthed, her lips mimicking my own as I had done in teaching her. I nodded again, closing my eyes against the torrent of emotions trying desperately to spill from the void I locked them in. Hearing her voice, that voice I had come to know so well, all its smallest implications and idiosyncrasies studied over in my mind, trying desperately to say my name, was almost too much.

The majority of our journey in the Song of Nephilim was silent, tense and lonely. We knew that too many voices too often would alert some sort of defense system that we were hoping to avoid at all costs. Only the quiet directions of Jr., spoken at intervals, were spoken into the eerie, echoing silence. It was as if the heavens spilt their grace upon us when we found a door. Jr. inspected it shortly.

"I can hear something on the other side," he murmured lowly. I stepped forward cautiously and held myself close to the door. I ticked through the possible ideas that my internal system produced at picking up the vibrations from the other side of the door. Perplexed, I furrowed my eyebrows and looked inquisitively at Jr.

"It's thunder," I announced. Silence. Jr. pressed his ear doubtfully against the door. His eyebrows shot up, proving my hypothesis. At his movement, the door slid open with a hiss, but it seemed at though the other side had been pressurized as well. Jr. nearly fell onto the catwalk on the other side of the door, face first, but righted himself in time. Shooting to his feet as if the incident had never occurred, he brushed his hair from his eyes, and nodded for us to follow.

The catwalk was single-file. Jr. led the way, Shion slightly behind, the domineering form of KOS-MOS behind her. chaos was sandwiched between her formidable shape and my own bulky form as we marched as one. MOMO plodded behind me, as if unaware of the drastic and violent change of scenery.

The darkness of the innards of the ship flared into brightness as an arch of lightning tore across my field of vision. I shielded my eyes quickly, squinting to watch as the bolt arched from the very topmost spire of a black tower to the like spire at the top of our own tower. We had arrived at a crux, the joining place of three seemingly identical towers. Each was topped with dimmed lights, each tower with a different specific color. In the center was another, shorter. A crack of thunder deafened my ears for the shortest moment. They regained function to the sound of screaming.

Shion was on her knees, the line had stopped. My first and immediate assumption was that she was injured. I ran a quick scan of her curled body, but there appeared to be nothing wrong with her. She was shaking. She was crying.

"I hate thunder..." her shaking, tear-stained voice warbled low beneath the continuing roll of thunder.

"Shion..." I tried to step forward, but the catwalk was only so wide.

"Shion." I turned. MOMO had spoken the woman's name. Shion's head slowly came up, and she looked straight past me to where the doll-like form of MOMO stood, staring straight at the young woman.

"MOMO, you..." She stood, tears in her eyes. "you can talk?"

"Shion," MOMO said again. "It's thunder." My words from before. She had become a recorder. Shion, joy evident in the discovery of MOMO's ability to speak, clasped her hands and laughed. It was a short laugh, full of release. Another long, loud whip of lightning and thunder. Shion cringed, throwing herself against the handrail and squeezing her eyes shut. But MOMO's strength had given her strength. She didn't fall to her knees, there was no more sobbing.

"Are you all right?" I asked the woman quickly. The thunder passed, and she nodded stiffly. Her white knuckles left the handrail, and she looked sadly toward me.

"Yes," she assured me in a breath of a voice. "Thanks, Ziggy." The darkness lit up lavender with the electricity crackling around us.

"You're welcome," was lost in the roar of thunder.

We headed for the second tower. Our current location didn't seem to lead anywhere but. Another door led inward, and walking into the deadly silence as just as unnerving as when we had left it. But I was more than glad to abstain from walking single-file. KOS-MOS and I both ran quick checks of the surrounding area. We came to the conclusion that there were multiple levels in the tower, accessible by ladders and Shion's Connection Gear. Thank God the woman worked at Vector. I also detected life-forms in the lower levels, which seemed to be human or Realian. But, now acquainted with this madhouse of labrynth hallways and silent darkness, who knew what could be waiting for us down there?

"Shion," KOS-MOS began, "my sensors indicate that a human life-form, much on the same wavelength as Gaignun Kukai Jr., resides in the centermost artifice in the previous area." Jr. glanced up sharply.

"That's him," he growled. The tight grip on his precious guns increased. "How do we get there?" KOS-MOS recited the information blankly.

"There appears to be a lift between the second and third artifices that make up the original triangle. There is a 91.74398 percent chance that there is a mechanism in this tower that controls the functionality of the lift."

"All right," Jr. announced, pulling himself to his full height. "Let's go. Old man," his intense blue eyes turned on me, "keep an eye out for anything funny. Who knows what kind of crap Albedo will try to pull?" He looked sadly at MOMO, biting his lower lip. "St-stay close." Something suddenly caught my eye, and I turned, quickly.

"Watch out!" I called. Before he knew what hit him, I shoved Jr. aside, and he took MOMO with him. A great spider-like machine slashed its mechanical arm through the air where Jr. had just stood. With deadly accuracy, I took aim and kicked it square in its visual sensor mechanism. The wiring and metal crunched under the harder metal of my foot. It fought back.

The machine threw all of its weight against the closest object: my leg. I was sent flailing backwards, but I caught myself before I could fall to the ground. Jr. opened fire, and the bullets ricocheted off of the mechanical monster's metal skin. The thing, its visual damaged, obviously had no way of telling where the gunshots were coming from. So it opened a compartment in its side and produced a gun of its own. And it opened fire.

"Get down!" chaos shouted, dragging Shion to the ground with him. Jr. threw his body over MOMO's, firing at the machine's mounted gun wildly. The enemy's bullets flew wide and wild, embedding themselves in the wall, the floor. One thudded into KOS-MOS' abdomen, but the metal woman was unfazed. I felt fire rip through my shoulder as a stray bullet drove through me.

_The bullet. My bullet. My blood. My rage, my self-hate, pouring from me like the lifeblood I had spilled from me by my own hand. I was dying, dying. No more pain._

The cry of pain choked in my throat and ended as a sharp gasp. I'd been shot. It was my good arm, too... Damn.

"Ziggy!" It was Shion's voice.

"Old man, are you all right?" Jr.'s voice called through the hail of bullets.

"I'm all right," I replied. And to get the point across, I rushed forward as the machine's gun was facing away from me. My metal fist crunched into the metal at the base of the gun, causing it to shoot precariously up into the ceiling. With a final blow to the weapon, I smashed it under my left hand. Jr. began firing again, this time at the hole where the gun had once been mounted. The bullets hit their mark, the delicate wiring beneath the tough metal hide severed and shorted by Jr.'s precise aim. The thing convulsed mechanically, sparks shooting from its innards, and finally collapsed at my feet.

I glanced up at Jr., who was still protecting MOMO with his body.

"Is MOMO okay?" I asked. Jr. nodded, his face pale. I glanced at my shoulder. Blood was coursing down my arm, and I could feel it soaking into the fabric of my uniform. I grimaced. The bullet had gone right through me. Funny, that even an old cyborg like me needed blood. I was surprised when MOMO extricated herself from Jr.'s grasp and took halting steps toward me. She placed one of her pale, tiny hands in front of her.

"Ziggy," her lips articulated. I knelt down beside her, concerned.

"What?" I asked. She stepped forward, and her hand pressed down on my wound, blood oozing between her fingers. A sharp breath hissed through my teeth at the biting pain. Then a warmness seemed to come from her warm hand, and spread through the length of my arm. The pain slowly dissipated. When she removed her hand, the blood had gone from her person, and it had dried on my own. The bullet wound had healed up, and there was no pain when I flexed my arm.

I looked MOMO in the face. It was her Ether skills, there was no doubt. But Jr. had said that Albedo reversed the spiritual link, stealing her very personality. How could she still manage to use her nanotechnology on my wound when she had been wiped clean?

"Thank you," she said in a single tone, misinterpreting the word and the way Shion had used it earlier. I watched her blank face, unsure of my previous assessments of her condition. But I felt the same warmness in my heart that she had spread through my arm, and one of the edges of my lips twitched upward.

"You're welcome," I answered.

* * *

AN: Aha! Another chapter! This is one of the longer one's I've written, and it's mostly about nothing... Oh well. Oh, and as to some questions that have been posed, I am going to continue on for Episode II. I'll end "Promise" when Ep. I ends, and start a new story, a sequel, for Ep. II. I still haven't come up with a definite name, so if you think you have a good one, feel free to suggest. I love every one of my readers, and I wanted to thank you for your support. It's great fun writing this story, and I'm glad that it's being enjoyed out there. Happy reading! 


	22. Do You Remember How We Met?

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Do You Remember How We Met?**

We had entered the third tower, and MOMO nearly had a grasp of normal speech.

It had been decided after the robot ambush in the second tower that communication was key to our survival in the Song of Nephilim. We had forgotten the fears of disturbing any hidden security systems. Even the mechanical guards seemed to run into us haphazardly. The speech did not hinder us from moving furtively, rather, it helped us to coordinate our movements. And I had been teaching MOMO to speak again.

"Your mother sent me to rescue you from U-TIC- an organization against the Federation government."

"Mother?" MOMO's voice was thin and robotic. I felt the need to elaborate.

"Juli Mizrahi is your mother. She's not your mother in the natural sense, but she is your legal guardian, and you are legally her daughter."

"I am her daughter," MOMO mimicked. She paused. I had been telling her of our exploits. "Then?" She asked. Her simple knowledge of words struck me to the core. A skeleton of the MOMO I had known. It hurt deep down, where no other feeling could reach. I halted for a moment, waiting for chaos' visual conformation. MOMO and I moved from behind one niche to another diagonal from our position.

"I arrived at the U-TIC base undetected, setting a charge of explosives near the gate should I need them at a later time." I gently provoked her to duck while I craned my neck around the corner to look for guards. None were anywhere to be seen. I allowed her to come to full height again as we ducked into a nearby passage following Jr. and chaos. "You were locked in a containment cell guarded closely, and I managed to retrieve the cell block key with little hassle." Jr. looked over his shoulder to listen to us.

"I meet Ziggy," MOMO said unblinkingly, staring up at me. I nodded, glancing at Jr., then back to the Realian.

"When I unlocked the cell door, I confirmed your identity as the 100-Series Prototype Realian. You..." I paused, seeing the sudden apprehension flash behind MOMO's eyes. Was there someone still inside of that precious girl? "You told me that you preferred to be called MOMO, because that was what your father had called you."

"Daddy..." MOMO muttered, her lips barely moving. I stared, surprised. Neither of us had uttered that work after discovering MOMO in her current state. How did she know? Jr. cleared his throat.

"Did Shion and KOS-MOS follow you?" he asked. I met the eyes of the boy and nodded.

"We staggered arrival times, just to be safe," I answered. As I said this, Shion and KOS-MOS entered the small passage we had all crammed into. "All clear?" I asked.

"Yes," Shion breathed.

"I detect no immediate threat in the surrounding area," KOS-MOS added. Jr. took it as all the reason he needed and padded swiftly back into the main corridor. chaos went with him.

"Then?" MOMO asked again. At least her rudimentary language skills managed to get the point across.

"The main exits were blocked," I began again, listening for Jr.'s signal. "We managed to hide from the patrols in an overlooked control room. Do you remember-" I stopped myself. Of course she didn't remember. "You are the one that gave me the name Ziggy," I said after clearing my throat.

Shion caught my eyes. It had just occurred to me that I had never told the woman that fact. There was a sad, far-off look in Shion's eyes. She cast her gaze downwards when she realized I had seen her sad eyes. Jr. gave a shrill whistle.

"Come on," I urged, and MOMO and I left the passage. We darted into an alcove. "We managed to dodge the U-TIC guards with a few exceptions. But with your help, we had no trouble dispensing with them. We were about to get away practically scot-free, when _he_ showed up." I grimaced. Margulis was his name. If I was correct in my assumption, it was Commander Margulis. His words still lodged themselves in my mind. He had left quite an impression.

"Who is _he_, Ziggy?" MOMO's words began to gel.

"A commander of U-TIC," I said quickly. She didn't need to know his name. There were many things she didn't need to know. Her mother's uncaring attitude toward her. The nature of her father's death, of his life. If anything, I was glad she didn't have those things to worry about. "He attempted to halt our progress of escaping the fortress, but you and I-" I couldn't help it; a tug of the heartstrings, a shortness of breath, "-make quite a team."

"Ziggy and MOMO... Quite a team," her tiny voice mimicked the reverberations of my own. We moved from our alcove to share one with Jr. and chaos again.

"How much further do you suppose the mechanism KOS-MOS mentioned is?" I asked. chaos shrugged. Jr. stuck out his bottom lip in thought.

"Maybe you should ask her," he said with a distinct redness clouding his face. I didn't have to wait long. I repeated my question to the android. She was silent, and I assumed that she was running calculations and scans inside of her head.

"The mechanism is down two floors, precisely."

Jr.'s grin flared. "Hey, lucky break, huh?" He tucked one gun into its holster, but kept the other close. "We can use those ladders over there to go down, I guess." He rounded quickly. "But keep an eye out, got it? Don't get stupid just because it looks easy." I had a feeling that all of his hostility of late was being used on me, and I had a good idea as to why. I couldn't help the sarcasm that sneaked into my voice.

"I'll try not to act 'stupid,' Jr.," I assured him. MOMO, owl-eyes glancing between us both, stopped her gaze on Jr.

"Jr. is not stupid," she stated lowly. "Ziggy is not stupid. MOMO is not stupid." She was getting it, at last. The words congealed into language. Jr.'s face morphed into a wide smile.

"MOMO! You can... That's great!" He looked up at me. "Teaching her how to talk again, old man? That why you're telling stories?"

"Something like that," I muttered. I felt Shion's smile as she stood behind me.

"I think it's sweet," she said lowly.

Jr. suggested that I be the first to use the ladder. I'd had a recent bad adventure with ladders, on our trip through the Encephalon. It had disintegrated from under my weight. Then again, his logic was sound: If it could hold me, it could probably hold anybody. I could vaguely hear MOMO telling Jr., "Ziggy is on the ladder," as I gingerly stepped onto the first rung. It was steady. As I held another rung firmly in my hands, I felt the thick steel beneath my human hand, safe and sturdy. I lowered myself steadily, checking the stability of the ladder. Not one fault, flaw or other compromising factor. It was as if the Song of Nephilim had been constructed that very day. It reflected the pristine coldness of the entire ship.

"All right," I announced as I pulled myself from the ladder a floor down, "it checks out." Jr. was next, instructing MOMO the whole way down. She nodded, repeating most of his words. His steps echoed in the vast emptiness. He soon hopped down next to me, beckoning for MOMO to follow. The movements were jerky, slow and precise. She moved concisely, with purpose, but her movements were stiff and unused. She nearly fell twice, and I jumped as if to catch her both times. She finally made it to the bottom, where Jr. and I inspected her quickly. Jr. turned to coax Shion down the ladder when MOMO tugged at my arm.

"Then?" she asked again. I leaned against the nearby wall, searching my memory.

"We commandeered- stole- a small ship to escape the U-TIC fortress. We were pursued by a small fleet of Auto-Techs, which were persistent in recapturing you. You took over the flight controls, while I took care of retaliation."

_I wouldn't be much of a bodyguard if I didn't._

Shion was down the ladder, and hovering just outside of our conversation.

"We made the jump into hyperspace, and we still hadn't lost the Auto-Techs. A civilian ship," my eyes flashed up to Shion, who had now been joined by chaos, "was in our flight path. When our left engine had been shot out of commission, it was the Elsa- the civilian ship- that saved us."

_Are you scared?_

_A little... But I'm okay. Because you're here with me..._

"The Elsa saved us," MOMO repeated. KOS-MOS had taken the ladder, the last of us. She had already started descending to the second level. chaos followed soon after. I started to follow, watching as MOMO strode close to me.

"We met Shion, KOS-MOS and chaos when our ship was picked up by the Elsa." I helped her onto the ladder. I followed. We stood side by side at the bottom of the ladder.

"Then?" Her voice was almost eager.

_The Dock Colony. Cherenkov. Cathedral Ship. KOS-MOS. . ._

There were some things she didn't need to know.

"Jr. and the Durandal- his own ship- appeared just in time," I lied miserably. I had always been a terrible liar.

It was only a matter of time before KOS-MOS located the mechanism and activated it. I was continuing the story. We had no way of telling whether the maneuver had worked other than to trust KOS-MOS' word. A door on the outside of the tower led again to the dark place full of thunder and lightning. Just as KOS-MOS had said, a lift was waiting for us just off of the catwalk. Lights on the lift glowed brightly into the darkness. We all managed to squeeze onto the small lift, which, at Shion's prodding, took us down to the lowest level.

A small building, though still somewhat of a tower, was directly before us. It gave off an ominous feel of its own. There was only a door between the six of us and whatever KOS-MOS had detected inside. Whatever it was, I knew that we had to keep the Gnosis from attacking the Foundation any further than they already had, and our solution may very well lay inside the building ahead. Jr. had his hand on the door. It was shaking. I looked concernedly at the boy, and he must have felt my gaze on the back of hi head, for he calmed himself a degree.

"He's in there. I know it." That was all he said. MOMO, who had absorbed more words than I could have possibly hoped, stirred.

"I am not feeling well," her tiny voice struggled with every word, as if trying to sound each out as its own sentence. "So please ... exclude me from battle."

I didn't even remember using half of the words she had used.

Jr. stared at the girl, eyes flicking to mine once, then shrugged nervously. "Sure," he muttered.

"Thank you," were the last words out of her mouth before Jr. opened the door.

A blast of cold air hit me straight in the face. A vast, flame-lit room was before us. Bodies of silver haired girls littered the floor, their eyes open and staring into the nothingness of death. And sitting, on a throne of obsidian, was a tall, deranged-looking white haired man.

With MOMO in his thin, white-gloved hands.

* * *

AN: Awiiiiiight... Swootness. Albedo apeareth! I hope you had fun thinking Kirsch-MOMO was cute, cuz she's about to die. MOMO/Ziggy cuteness and it wasn't even MOMO doing the cutness. heheh... Anyway, I think I'll have fun writing insane Albedo. Also, just in case some people don't check my author page, the finalists for the sequel's title are "Detriment" "Providence" "Collapse" and "Divine Intervention." It'd be awesome if I could have your input on this stuff. Thanks for reading, everyone, I love you all!


	23. Albedo

**Chapter Twenty-Three: Albedo**

The man was smiling, grinning like a child, as we entered his domain. His purple eyes -purple eyes!- were gleaming with an infantile glee. And yet the macabre scene of dead, wide-eyes children surrounding his dark throne gave the man a shadow of insanity that threw his grinning features into sharp, horrible relief. With one hand he held the pink hair of my charge in a fierce grip, while the other stroked her cheek absent-mindedly. I felt my heart stop, then start again in a horrid tattoo against my ribcage. It shook me, shook my brain, shook my heart, to see MOMO, _my_ MOMO, in the arms of that man. But Jr. did not see. He saw only the dark violet eyes of the staring man.

"Albedo..." His voice was a growl, throaty and primal, coming from the depths of his lungs. "YOU!" His white knuckles were on his guns, ready to shoot holes into the man. I wasn't sure if I would mind terribly if he did.

"Please spare me from any trite lines like, 'You're still alive?'" His voice was a man's, dark and full of malice, but yet with a twinge of something child-like hidden in the darkness, like a child without a light. "Life and death are merely empty words lacking any power over me. By the way..." He ran a gloved hand over MOMO's face, her eyes shut fast in horror, "did you ever bother telling the girl? Does she know that we're monsters, both you and I?" I could hardly take my eyes from the scene of horror before me, but I managed to glance at Jr., whose face was now contorted in fear and hate, his cheeks as red as his hair. He had seen MOMO.

"MOMO!" His voice had changed again. It was thin, held on a string as if it could snap at any moment. Watching the terror on his face, I was in for another shock as tiny white fingers took his throat in their grip. It was MOMO. No, it wasn't MOMO... But how could it be anything else? Her doll's eyes, glazed and without emotion, spoke quietly in a voice that was anything but MOMO's.

"I want the me that's inside you," it said menacingly. I felt a sickening chill creep up my spine. Jr. opened his mouth to speak, but MOMO lifted him from the ground, his feet curling with pain underneath him.

"M...MOMO...?" His voice cracked, obviously fighting through the pain. She was unmoved, her eyes staring at the back of the boy's head as she raised him off the ground.

Then before my eyes, that MOMO died. She was no longer what I had thought she had been. I'd been deceived, my sensors, all of my diagnostics scans, but more importantly, my heart. I'd been fooled by this thing that had assumed MOMO's shape. The once pink hair drained of color until it was a dull silver. Her skin was no longer the shade of the girl I knew. She looked like MOMO, and yet was so different. That MOMO, who I had taught to speak, who had listened so intently to the stories, wasn't MOMO anymore.

"MOMO!" It was Shion. Her face was a mask of horror. Her fingers were trembling. I glared back at the imposter, rage bubbling in my stomach at this _thing_ that had impersonated the girl I loved.

"That's not her," I growled. Shion's eyes turned to me. "That's..." I had no idea.

"Free from the bonds of flesh," the tall, white-haired man interjected. The grin on his face was gut-wrenchingly wide. "A pure consciousness has no true form. All that exists is the longing for reality." Jr. clawed desperately at the fingers around his neck, gasping for air. Suddenly, a bright aura surrounded the boy, his very skin seeming to emit the bright red light. I stepped back. A growl of rage exited his small frame.

"Get off me!" His voice ripped through the otherwise silent scene, and he threw his arms and legs out in rage. As he did so, the bright red light flew from his body like a shockwave. The girl was thrown backwards, and with a sickening crunch she hit the back wall. MOMO, in the arms of the madman, twitched and whimpered with pain. I balled my hands into fists as Jr. struggled to his feet.

"Did you see that, ma pêche.?" He spoked soothingly to MOMO, his face inches away from hers. She didn't open her eyes. "You're witness to his true nature right now. A consciousness desperately struggling to stay alive. Such a pitiful sight." He looked up, narrowed eyes staring straight at Jr. "This is unseemly, Rubedo." Rubedo? Who--?

"Jr.," came a pitiful voice. It wrenched at my heart, and it took every nerve in my body to not sink to my knees in despair. It was MOMO, and she sounded as fi she had been through unbelievable pain. Jr.'s face emitted the emotion that I felt through my entire body.

Then the man, his fingers trembling in excitement, reached into MOMO's abdomen. She groaned in pain, and it echoed through the vast room. The pit of my stomach dropped out, and my heart fell through it. I had never felt as helpless. Only once. It was the same feeling, the same as that day.

"Albedo!" The voice coming from Jr. was one I had never heard. It was rage, pure and absolute. "Get your stinkin' hands off of her!" His hands finally reached into the holsters and whipped out the identical pistols. "Or else I'll-"

"Hmm?" The man, Albedo, interrupted Jr. with a flick of his disturbing eyes, grin full off malice. "You'll do something if I do _this_?" With a vicious thrust, his hand went through MOMO up to the man's elbow. I choked on my own growl of anger, staring with helplessness as MOMO threw back her head and cried into the silence. Jr. raised his guns.

"You mother-!" His last word was cut off with a violent explosion from both guns. Both bullets sunk into the man's arm, the one that had violated MOMO, and it exploded into nothingness. No blood, no scream of pain.

Then a laugh. A laugh so terrifying that my blood congealed at the very sound of it. The maniacal laugh sent terror through every bone, every circuit in my body with every repeating, high-pitched gyration in the man's voice. I wanted to rip the throat out of him, just so he would never subject me to that laugh ever again. And against all logic, the man's arm reformed with a flash, and he worked his fingers as if working circulation back into them.

"What pain... so sweet, so alive!" He chuckled as he looked to the sky as if thank the heavens for being shot. "Pain is such a vital part of realizing one's existence." He took his eyes to Jr. "Try to remember, Rubedo." Jr. glared at the man. Albedo, that monster, he kept referring to Jr. as Rubedo... When he had said that Jr. wasn't his real name- "What it takes... What you must do... Or, have you lived in peace for so long that you've completely forgotten?" A grin flitted across his face, an insane grin filled with nonsensical ideas. Jr. pointed his guns again at Albedo, gritting his teeth and ignoring the fact that the man had just re-grown his own arm.

"I don't give a _damn_ about what you have to say! Just give her back!" There was a tense moment of silence, where, in glancing from one to the other, I noticed the eerie resemblance between the two of them, and even Albedo's likeness to Gaignun. In that moment, Albedo brought a hand to his chin in thought and shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said simply. I stepped forward, ready to take her from his by any means possible. I was surprised to find chaos' hand on my shoulder holding me back. "I'll just take what I want to proceed with my plans. And along the way, I'll make you remember," he stared at Jr. as one would as if staring over the rims of glasses, inviting Jr. to challenge him, "who you really are."

"Shut up!" Jr. was livid. I had thought he had been angry with me on the bridge of the Durandal, but now I saw that I had gotten a mere fraction of his wrath. "I don't need some freak contaminated by U-DO to tell me-"

"Jr.?" Shion murmured from beside me. She must have been thinking the same that I was. It was U-DO that Nephilim, the girl from KOS-MOS' encephalon, had told us about. That KOS-MOS would encounter U-DO and fight it in her true form. The connection alone was enough to make me stare in wonder at the white-haired man.

"Contaminated? Not quite. More like," he paused, putting a finger to his cruel lips in thought, "evolved. I experienced but a fragment of my true power that day. The waves that inundated my body are now a part of me! I've reached a higher stage of existence compared to you incomplete mortals." With his filthy hand he delved inside of MOMO, and I felt my own teeth grinding inside of my head. "I am the alpha and the omega of perfect consciousness!" His voice rose to the hypothetical rafters with elation. Jr. was shaking.

"S-Stop it," his voice cracked.

"Mmm..." Albedo sighed and closed his eyes. I hadn't realized that I had been biting my lip until blood flowed into my mouth. _That bastard. I'll kill him. I'll kill him by making him choke on his own filthy mind._ "Ah, this is nice." He glared obviously at Jr. "Don't you want to give it a try?"

That was it. Jr. cracked. His eyes were wild, like that of a cornered animal, and his shaking had reduced him to a trembling heap. But his back snapped erect and he gripped his guns as that blazing aura formed just around his person once again with one strangled word:

"MOMO!"

The guns fired again as one, dual explosions close to my ear, and I watched in awe (was it satisfaction?) as one bullet eradicated the same arm once again, as the second bullet shot through his head. Both disappeared in flash, and the headless man's body swayed for a moment. I was ready to retrieve MOMO from the dead man's fingers. I was already moving forward when another bright light shown from the lifeless body of Albedo. Slowly, his head was reforming, those violet eyes glaring with adolescent glee at each of us, but especially at his would-be killer. I stared, open-mouthed, at the revived man before us.

"Impossible," I muttered. "Is that nanotechnology?"

"No," Shion answered from beside me, her voice shaky. The man had just lost his head and it was growing back against all possible laws of science. She had an excuse to be frightened. "Nanomachines can't work anywhere near that fast, and besides, not even the research laboratories have models with head-regenerating capabilities yet." If I hadn't seen the frightening display before me only moments ago, I might have laughed at the absurdity of head-regenerating capabilities.

"He's a U.R.T.V. Just like Jr."

Shion and I spun to see chaos, his eyes narrowed in concern, staring at the frightening man that was Albedo. U.R.T.V. They had been in the encephalon as well. It all made sense now. How all of them had looked similar to Jr., to Albedo...

"What!" Jr. interjected, eyes inspecting chaos as if he, too, was unaware of the fact.

"U.R.T.V.s." chaos explained, as if a professor to his class. "They were created for the express purpose of eradicating U-DO."

"U-DO," mimicked Shion. There it was again.

"Rubedo, you still don't remember? Or could it be," that terrible grin filled his face, "fear. You're frightened, is that it? Am I right?" Fear. I felt it, cold and alien, in my veins. I pushed it away. Emotions couldn't interfere. The mission, my mission to protect MOMO, needed my full attention. I would save her. "I can't blame you. The only thing that matters to you is yourself. Rubedo, so cruel." He ran a finger along MOMO's jaw, and she flinched involuntarily. I let an inhuman growl escape my throat. "And yet this girl clings to you so dearly. Isn't it pitiful?"

Again, he sunk his arm into MOMO's abdomen, again she whimpered, helpless, unable to resist the strong grip of the man. And I averted my eyes. I couldn't stand to watch, and each piercing sob from MOMO's lips drained my resolve. Why couldn't I do anything?

"One more layer. Just one more layer, and then I'll have everything inside of her. I'm sure you know what that means, Rubedo." A cackle was all I heard, and the ice in my blood thickened at the mere sound. "Now then, I wonder how much more she can take?" Then she screamed. The breath stopped in me, and I felt as if the very life were being stripped from me with every second she was in pain. Her voice melded suddenly with Jr.'s, as he screamed only one word.

"NO!"

A bright light suddenly overtook us, and I shielded my eyes. It was Jr. His fiery red aura surrounded him and exploded with a suddenness as it had with MOMO's imposter. I felt the heat given off by his anger, his hatred, those raw emotions that I had long given up, and how I longed to have them now. A gasp from Albedo, and a rustle, then a dull thud. The light died.

Albedo was gone. MOMO was lying, unconscious, at the foot of the madman's throne. I started running. I didn't know if the others had followed me, but I knew that Jr. got there first. Both of us had knelt to the ground, and he cradled MOMO's fragile head in his hands.

"MOMO! Are you okay!" He intensely called to her, calling through the levels of pain she'd had to endure. I could only stare.

She was broken, a broken girl just as much as she was a broken Realian. I could see it on her face, the pain, the anguish at the mere thought of that man and his maniacal delving into her subconscious. I had failed. I had failed again, after everything that I had promised to her. All I'd ever wanted was for her to be safe, to never have to face pain as she had done inside the Song of Nephilim. Again, it was my fault.

I would kill him.

"I see." He was laughing. He rose from the ground, where Jr. must have knocked him from his throne. And the bastard was _laughing._ "It all makes sense now..."

He held his head in his hands and laughed. Jr. stood to face the monster of a man, and I took MOMO's sad form in my arms as I knelt next to her.

"But now, Rubedo, how about we enjoy a moment or two together?" He cracked his knuckles with that mad grin on his exaggerated features. Jr. growled as a response. A red bloodlust stood in my field of vision. I passed MOMO's limp body to Shion, who looked at me with concern. I stood, now beside Jr., and met the gaze of Albedo with my own, fierce and untamed.

I would kill him.

* * *

AN: Well, I wanted to get this up two days ago but FF.n was being evil. But here it is, Albedo! I used the Japanese version of his infiltration of MOMO's data; he stuck his arm into MOMO. I thought it'd get Ziggy more riled up than the dumb American version. Speaking o' which, I'm not sure if I want Albedo to fight with E.S. Simeon, just because writing a fight scene with a mech would be boring. Tell me if you think I should just have some of the party fight him or if I should skip a fight scene.

Also, there is a winner in the title contest! The sequel to "Promise" shall be... -drumroll- "Providence!" Thanks for playing, have a nice summer!


	24. I Promise

**Chapter Twenty-Four: I Promise**

Jr. cocked his guns. I clenched my fists. KOS-MOS stood beside Shion, who cradled MOMO's poor tiny body in her arms. I had lost track of chaos in the sudden convolution the series of events had taken. I placed myself between the women and Albedo.

"Shion," my voice was harsher than I'd hoped. She looked up with a gasp. "Whatever happens, stay with MOMO." I managed to glare into her wide green eyes. "I made a promise."

It was at that moment that I made another promise, this one to myself. I promised that I would give that monster every ounce of pain that he had caused to MOMO, make him feel everything that she had gone through because of him. I swore that he would never get his grubby, searching hands on MOMO, or Shion, or even Jr. for that matter. He would never again sully one of my friends- not while I still had enough strength in me to fight him.

I cracked the knuckles in my right hand.

"Jr., circle around to his left flank while I focus on a frontal attack. I'll divert his attention-"

Strategy was lost on the boy as Albedo was assailed by a hail of flying bullets. The man held up one nonchalant hand, and the bullets miraculously refracted off of some invisible shielding he had created. I ducked as one bullet whizzed by my head. Sighing at Jr.'s incompetence, I dashed to Albedo's left flank under the cover of the raining bullets and swiftly brought out my arm blade in a quick upward thrust.

My face was spattered with blood as Albedo's left arm parted with his body at the shoulder. I shut one eye against the flow of blood from the wound, but I could still see the look on the man's face. He wasn't in pain, or even wincing in the least. At most he seemed _annoyed_, as if all I had done was cause him a minor inconvenience. So I cut into him again. His shoulder disappeared with a flash of my blade into his skin. Again, I cut into him, slicing through his chest to his clavicle. I caught myself just as I was about to thrust the blade through the center of his neck.

His newly formed left hand had seized me by the throat. Sharp nails dug into my neck, and I gagged as I tried to draw breath. It hadn't been the first time I had underestimated my enemy.

"Well, well, Rubedo," Albedo's voice was hardly a foot from my ear. "What good friends you have. The better to tempt you with, my dear." His grip on my neck tightened. Three of his sharpened fingernails pierced my skin, and blood ran in three neat rivulets down my neck. A gasp- Shion's, I could tell.

"Let him go, Albedo!" Jr. shouted. "This is between you and me!" The image of the bright red hair blurred as my air supply thinned.

"Ah, pain," Albedo's voice was now sickeningly close. "It seeps from you like a dammed-up spring. No matter how many of the holes you obstruct, you always spring a leak." A grin inches from my face. "I wonder if that is what it feels like to die. By the looks of you-" he held me farther away from his face to inspect my mechanical body, "-you might have died once. You and I have both been cheated by death, I see. Tell me... What's it like? That Abyss that awaits us after life has ended?" As if suddenly bored, he tossed me to the ground, where I tried to gather as much breath into my lungs as possible.

I glared darkly at Albedo, trying to staunch the flow of blood from my neck. With a determined grunt, I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet.

"Don't worry," I growled. "I'll send you there to see for yourself soon enough." I held my fists- one cold and metal, the other flesh and bloodstained- before me in an offensive position and barked, "Come on, Jr.!"

"Old man-" He was _concerned_, damn him.

"Forget about me," I told him in a hard voice. "Don't let me hold you back." He glared toward Albedo, then nodded, reloading with a flick of his wrists.

This time, we entered the fray as a unit. Jr., guns ablaze with motion and light, dodged and fired around my own aimed attacks of fist and blade. We must have been a red, white and blonde blur, ducking and weaving, blocking and shooting. Albedo blocked everything I threw at him, while every one of Jr.'s bullets went through him without doing one hint of damage. And he was laughing. That stabbing, maniacal laugh dug into me and ate out my courage.

Before I could register what had happened, I was on the ground, facing the ceiling. I had a searing pain in my chest, and it took a great effort to breathe. I realized that was because Jr. was lying unconscious across my chest. Blood was trickling from the side of his mouth and his arms dangled limply by his side. I threw myself to my feet, bringing Jr. with me.

"So weak, so tender." Albedo, turning one of Jr.'s guns over in his hand, looked up as I stood. "Living life on a satin cushion does wonders for the complexion, but when the harshness of reality, the pain and suffering the living are damned to face, it only makes it that much harder to bear." I shook Jr. awake, and he gazed, owl-eyed, at the world again. "Why don't you show me your true power, Rubedo? We both know what will happen if you do."

"I won't-" Jr. stumbled out of my reach and picked up the remaining gun from the polished floor. "I'm not that... person anymore..." He coughed, clutching his ribs, as blood flecked on his lips.

"We'll see just what kind of _man_ you are, Rubedo-" Albedo was cut off severely as the long-missing chaos appeared behind him and gave a swift chop to the neck with his bare hand. Albedo stumbled to the ground, the gun in his hand tumbling across the floor to Jr.'s unsteady feet.

"I don't want to fight," chaos said quietly as he brought his leg swiftly across the back of Albedo's neck. "But you've given me no other choice." Albedo shot to his feet, exchanging a keen glance with Jr., just as a bright ball of violet energy materialized in his clawed hand.

"chaos!" Jr. warned. Albedo fired at point-blank range in a flash of blazing light. I heard Shion cry out, but no sound from MOMO. The light dimmed, and I was witness to the first look of anger on Albedo's face. chaos had blocked his attack, the light streaming to either side of the fair-haired boy. Determination was etched on his featured. With a simple motion, he threw Albedo backwards, thudding into the wall. I was learning more and more about my companions in the Song of Nephilim than I had the entire time we had known each other.

"Jr., are you all right?" chaos asked. Jr. picked up his second gun and wiped the blood from his lips unceremoniously on his sleeve.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He glanced toward where Albedo's form had fallen, but saw nothing. He looked back. "How about you guys?"

"Never better," chaos said with a grim smile. I could see the strain that Albedo's attack had caused him. He was drained, and might not hold up against an onslaught. I cracked my neck, feeling the wounds tentatively in the lull.

"Nothing I can't handle," I assured them.

My breath caught in my throat as I felt my wrist clutched with more force than I had expected. Albedo was behind me; I could tell by his foul presence. He twisted my human wrist hard into my back and held it there, excruciatingly. Jr. was quick to his guns and aimed them at my captor's head. chaos jumped into a defensive stance, ready.

"Such wonderful pain," Albedo mused. "Even _you_ can feel it. Every bone in your arm being pulled slowly from their joints, cracking under the pressure. Let me feel your pain! Make me feel alive!"

"Don't you _dare_!" Jr. shouted, cocking both of his guns.

"Jr., don't let your anger take over," chaos warned.

"What are you going to do, Rubedo?" Albedo smirked, and he pulled my arm further up my back. "Shoot me?" He was going to break my arm. I felt my bones straining, ready to crack.

Then nothing.

It was the same feeling I'd had on Miltia, that I was seeing something that had already gone by. A memory, covered by the dust of time.

I was in my Federation Police uniform, at the station. Everything around me was familiar, and yet now so alien to me. One of my young operatives was standing in front of me, and I recognized him immediately. Michael Oltman, young and dark-faced with his coarse black hair braised close to his scalp and pulled back behind his head. He had the smile he was so fond of lighting up his dark skin.

"I don't know why I have to practice your moves, Captain," he said with an air of whimsy, "when all I have to do is control our unit's dives."

"You can never predict the mind of a terrorist, Michael." My voice was younger, brighter. "I'm making everyone else go through with officer's training, just to be on the safe side." Michael shrugged, then rolled his shoulders in preparation.

"All right, Captain, you're the boss. Just be ready for me. I should warn you that I was known as the Oltman Hurricane in High School."

He rushed at me. He had studied our defense and offense in the training programs I had instituted regularly. He blocked my blows high and low, then grabbed onto my wrist and held it tightly behind my back. I could sense the smirk on his face.

It was all over in a flash. I brought the free arm's elbow sharp against Michael's jaw, which caused him to loosen his grip on my captured arm as a response. In that split second, I grabbed his arm and flipped him neatly over my shoulder. He groaned as a sign of his defeat. Walking over to the fallen man, I smirked down at him. He squinted through the pain to look up at me.

"You seem more like an Oltman Tropical Storm," I said with a gruff laugh. He blushed under his dark skin as I helped him to his feet.

"You'd better remember that trick, Captain. Never know when something like that might come in handy."

Michael's voice shattered around me as I cracked my free elbow into Albedo's jaw. I could feel the blood from his lips at the contact. I gripped his wrist with both hands, and with all the energy I had left in me, in one swift move, flipped him over my shoulder. He landed with a dull thud that resounded through the large room.

Breath hissed through my lungs. Jr.'s eyes were locked on his rival, but I had felt his gaze on me as I had thrown Albedo. I tried to ignore Shion's green eyes on the edge of the battle. Albedo wiped the blood from his lips with a cackle. He was staring at me, and I felt my insides go rigid. He sat up and leaned casually forward with one arm on each knee.

"I see," another cackle interrupted his speech. "Both of you, then. No, the three of us want ma pêche for ourselves. It's too bad that there isn't enough of her to go around!"

"Stop calling her that, you bastard!" Jr. cried. "She's a person, not some... toy!" Jr. leapt forward, shooting. Albedo simply grabbed the boy by the front of his shirt and examined his face.

"On the contrary, my dear Rubedo, ma pêche was constructed for the pleasures of the eyes, ears and flesh!" He chuckled darkly, which transformed into that deafening laugh of his.

"Stop it!"

All four of us turned to face Shion, her eyes livid and full of hate.

"Stop it! Stop it! I can't stand it anymore!" Fists clenched, eyes ablaze, she looked nothing like the Shion I had come to know. Was that what I had looked like to her on the Elsa?

As if suddenly disinterested, Albedo tossed Jr. aside, raising stagnant dust from the floor. Albedo stared greedily at Shion, who still held MOMO close to her. He had the look of a man starved for days setting his eyes on a steak.

"A sweet mother, cradling the head of her tiny child. How sentimental, that you cherish this mechanical angel as a human like yourself." He was a step away from them.

"Don't come any closer!" Shion warned.

I had blood on my blade. Albedo's head lay at his feet. I was breathing heavily, anger seething in me like a boiling stew of emotion.

"Don't you touch her," a primal growl escaped my lips, so low I could hardly hear myself.

A new grotesque face grew between Albedo's shoulders, and Jr., chaos and I were ready for it. I gave it a hefty punch that it hadn't been expecting, and Albedo's body flew to Jr. A blaze of bullets, flares of pure ether energy and a crescendo of laughter followed. Without taking my eyes off of the battle, I spoke to Shion.

"How is she?" I asked.

"Ziggy..." Her voice was shaking.

"Is MOMO all right?" I persisted.

"Y-yes..."

"KOS-MOS," I called. The blue-haired android was at hand in an instant. "Stay close to Shion. Make sure that bastard Albedo doesn't get too close."

"Affirmative. I will protect Shion and the 100-Series Observational Unit MOMO." Her red eyes met mine in affirmation. I didn't allow myself to glance down at MOMO. It would have been too much for me.

I rushed into battle once more. chaos was out of commission, eyes closed but chest still rising with every breath. Jr. had Albedo pinned to the floor, punching him repeatedly in the face. The madman's features were nearly indistinguishable under the blood. And still he smiled.

"Why don't you just die!" Jr. was exhausted, or near it by my estimation. With a laugh, Albedo summoned to him an aura similar to Jr.'s in every way but color. It burst forward in a wave, rocketing Jr. into a nearby wall. I could hear Jr. cry out in agony. Albedo neared him with slow footsteps.

"Don't you see, Rubedo? That's all I ever wanted! To taste the sweet milk that flows from the other side! That, or complete domination of the cosmos, whichever comes first!"

Albedo split into two pieces as KOS-MOS fired her beam cannon straight at his midsection. His lower half tumbled dead to the floor, where his upper half lay cackling incessantly. I looked quickly to my compatriots. chaos was conscious, and helping Jr. to his feet. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, and I turned slightly.

"Hold still, Ziggy." Shion's voice was beside my ear. She placed her hand on the back of my neck, and I winced in pain. "Sorry-" and warmness spread from her palm. Her ether abilities, like MOMO's, sealed the wounds Albedo had caused.

"This isn't working," I murmured, rubbing the circulation back into my neck. "As much as I want to, I can't kill him. If he keep regenerating like that-"

Jr. and chaos were beside us again. The redhead was sporting a broken nose, but was bearing it well. chaos, strangely, seemed unharmed at all.

And there stood Albedo, as if he had never suffered so much as a black eye his entire life.

"Ah, Rubedo. You're getting closer to your old self. But you're still not quite there yet. You were much stronger than this back then, weren't you?" He created the aura around himself again, this time in a half-circular shield that swirled with energy. Jr.'s eyes glowed red-hot with anger.

"Damn you, Albedo! Don't get cocky!" His aura exploded in a burst of fiery flames. The two separate energies met in a bright flash of white light. I felt the heat on my skin as I placed myself between the flames and Shion and MOMO.

_I'll protect you. I promise._

_

* * *

_

AN: Huzzah! The party fights Albedo! Man, I hope I got Albedo right. I mean, making someone pedophilic and creepy is easy enough, but nailing Albedo is harder than that. he also has intelligence along with his insanity. And huzzah for Ziggy!flashbacks... I get all of my Pied Piper information from zarathustra . kaisho . org if you're wondering where I got Michael from. Oh, and the game script starts again when Albedo says, "Ah, Rubedo. You're getting closer to your old self." Everything else is a ShoelessOne original. So, tell me what you think! I love you guys! ... Wow, this was a long chapter...


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